Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT, 1935 (ORDERS).

The VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Major George Davies) reported His Majesty's Answer to the Addresses, as followeth:—

I have received your Addresses praying that the Government of India (Constitution of Sind) Order, and the Government of India (Constitution of Orissa) Order, be made in the form of the respective Drafts laid before Parliament on the twentieth day of January last.

I will comply with your request.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

London and North Eastern Railway (General Powers) Bill (by Order),

Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Bill (by Order),

Surrey County Council Bill (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till Wednesday next.

Thornton Cleveleys Improvement Bill (by Order),

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

COLLECTIVE SECURITY.

Mr. MANDER: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will consider the advisability, with a view to securing that any increase in armaments shall form an effective contribution to the collective system, of proposing that a conference on the organisation of collective security should be held by the

League of Nations with this object or, alternatively, that consultations shall take place between the countries principally concerned on the subject?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Eden): The proposition that national armaments should serve to strengthen the system of collective security under the Covenant, and that that system should be made as effective as is possible in existing circumstances, is one with which His Majesty's Government are in full accord. I do not think, however, that the action suggested by the hon. Member would be practicable at the present time.

Mr. MANDER: Do I understand there is to be no consultation at all with regard to what contribution this country is going to make towards collective security in connection with the Governments' rearmament plan?

Mr. EDEN: My hon. Friend will recall that the Disarmament Conference had a somewhat similar object. I am afraid I cannot say what is the exact procedure to be used.

Mr. MANDER: Do I understand there is to be no contact or consultation whatever with other countries in this respect?

Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Could my right hon. Friend say whether the Defence Forces will be used to defend us as well as everybody else?

Mr. ATTLEE: In view of the fact that we have been told in this House that we are to make a contribution to collective security, how is the right amount to be ascertained without any consultation? Who will decide?

Mr. EDEN: Every nation has a national responsibility to aid in the scheme of collective security.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Is there to be no pooling?

Mr. EDEN: I did not say there would be no pooling.

Colonel GRETTON: Is there any system of collective security in operation at this time?

Mr. EDEN: Yes, Sir. The Covenant of the League of Nations.

GERMANY (RAW MATERIALS).

Mr. MACLAY: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will consider suggesting to the League of Nations that Germany be invited at an early date to put before the League her territorial grievance arising out of the Treaty of Versailles, and also her views regarding the general question of access to the raw materials of the world?

Mr. EDEN: The answer to the first part of the question is No, Sir. With regard to the second part, the hon. Member will be aware from recent statements in the House that the whole question of Colonial raw materials is under consideration by His Majesty's Government.

Mr. MACLAY: In coming to a conclusion with regard to the first part of his question, has the right hon. Gentleman borne in mind the difficulty which the public in this country has in coming to any calm and reasoned opinion regarding the German problem unless it knows authoritatively from some source what Germany considers to be her grievances?

Sir JOSEPH NALL: Is there any ban on the export of raw materials from any territory administered by this country?

Mr. EDEN: I do not think that is a question for me.

Mr. MANDER: Do not the Germans want all they can get?

NEAR EAST.

Mr. MANDER: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of statements that have been made in the countries concerned, he will make it clear that the policy of the British Government in the Near East is directed towards securing concord and co-operation between all States in general and, in particular, between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria?

Mr. EDEN: I do not know to what statements the hon. Member refers, but I feel sure that the long standing desire of His Majesty's Government to encourage good relations between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and between all other States in the Near East, is sufficiently well known not to require any special declaration on my part of the kind suggested.

Mr. MANDER: Would my right hon. Friend in this connection be good enough to bear in mind the recent conspiracy trial at Sofia and use his good offices in the direction of clemency?

ITALY AND ABYSSINIA.

Mr. CREECH JONES: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information concerning the negotiations between Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini which took place before, and concerned, the Abyssinian campaign; and whether a document sent by the German officials to Signor Mussolini on the military prospects of such a campaign was sent to the Foreign Office, on what date, and what were its contents?

Mr. EDEN: The answer to both parts of the question is No, Sir.

Mr. PARKER: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty to what extent the special measures taken in connection with the Italo-Abyssinian dispute represent an acceleration of naval construction, and why this acceleration was necessary as a special measure?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Lord Stanley): The only special measure of acceleration arising directly from the Italo-Abyssinian dispute was the purchase of 20 trawlers. The reasons for this and any other alterations to our existing programmes were fully debated on Monday last.

TREATY OF LOCARNO.

Mr. MANDER: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether conversations between representatives of the defence services of this country, France, and Germany, and the other signatories, have taken place or are contemplated in connection with steps which might have to be taken to carry out the Treaty of Locarno; and whether, in view of recent consultations of a similar nature in connection with Mediterranean security, action on the above lines will be taken?

Mr. EDEN: The answer to both parts of the question is No, Sir.

Mr. MANDER: But if Locarno is to be an effective instrument, is it not essential that it should be worked out in detail on the technical side?

Mr. EDEN: The hon. Gentleman is confusing two things. The inquiries of the Mediterranean Powers took place after a breach of the. Covenant.

Mr. MANDER: Is it not better to make inquiries and to have arrangements made before rather than after?

Mr. BELLENGER: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether lie has received any representations from the German government on the Franco-Russian pact and, if so, of what nature; and whether the attitude of Germany to the Locarno Treaty is in any way modified by the arrangements embodied in the Franco-Russian pact?

Mr. EDEN: The German Government informed the Powers signatory of the Treaty of Locarno on 25th May, 1935, of their view of the relation of the Franco-Russian Treaty of Mutual Assistance, signed on 2nd May, 1935, with the Treaty of Locarno. This attitude is re-explained and amplified in the German Government's communiqué of 21st February which was published in the London Press the following day.

ABYSSINIA (BRITISH SUBJECTS).

Sir ROBERT TASKER: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will call for a report from the Minister at Addis Ababa as to whether any Englishman or Englishwoman has been kidnapped and sold as slaves in Ethiopia during the last year?

Mr. EDEN: No, Sir. I have no information of any such event. I am confident that His Majesty's Minister would at once have reported any occurrence of this description and taken appropriate action had it in fact occurred.

Sir R. TASKER: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this allegation was made recently by Lady Houston in the "Saturday Review"?

Mr. EDEN: Who is Lady Houston?

Sir R. TASKER: I do not know, Sir.

EGYPT.

Mr. HOPKIN: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make on the negotiations for a treaty with Egypt?

Mr. EDEN: I have nothing to add to the statement which I made in the course of the Debate on Monday last.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

UNESTABLISHED EMPLOYÉS.

Captain PLUGGE: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what is the present number of unestablished employés in His Majesty's naval establishments who have 10 years or more continuous service to their credit; and whether he will now consider making arrangements for such employés to be placed on the established list provided that their services have been satisfactory?

The CIVIL LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Kenneth Lindsay): The number of hired workpeople in the various Admiralty establishments at home with 10 years' continuous service or more is 19,456. In addition there are 302 non-industrial employés of similar service who are not established, and 93 persons belonging to grades normally established who have been ineligible for establishment for medical reasons or because they are over the age limit. Since the present established complement of industrial employés has been gradually reduced, and was on 1st January last 9,704, it would be out of the question to make such a large addition to it.

Captain PLUGGE: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether arrangements have yet been made to readjust the quota of men placed on the established list in His Majesty's naval establishment to one for one; and, if not, by what date it may to anticipated that such a ratio will be in operation?

Mr. LINDSAY: At present only one vacancy in every four occurring in the established list in the Royal Dockyards and other Admiralty industrial establishments at home is being filled, but the relaxation of this rule is under consideration. The question will shortly be discussed on the Admiralty Industrial Council.

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, MEDITERRANEAN.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the date of the appointment of the Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean and the date of the expiration of this appointment?

Lord STANLEY: Admiral Sir W. W. Fisher was appointed Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean, 30th September, 1932. His period of command will terminate shortly.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: Is it not a fact that his successor was appointed some months ago but has not taken up the appointment because he is attached to the Staff, and, in view of the fact that that is rather unfair on the other senior officers in the Service, could we have any information as to how long that is likely to continue?

Lord STANLEY: I have already answered the hon. and gallant Member's question.

Vice-Admiral TAYLOR: Can no information be given as to how long that state of affairs is likely to continue?

Lord STANLEY: I said it would terminate shortly.

SINGAPORE BASE.

Mr. RANKIN: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty by what date the Singapore base will be sufficiently advanced to enable a squadron to be placed there?

Mr. LINDSAY: It is anticipated that the base will be ready for general use in the financial year 1939.

Oral Answers to Questions — PALESTINE.

LABOUR CONDITIONS, JAFFA.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that in January, 1935, a committee was set up by the Government of Palestine to investigate and report on the conditions of labour existing at the port of Jaffa, including wages, hours of work, conditions of employment, and stevedores' charges; that no report has so far been presented; and will he state the cause of delay in presenting a report?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. J. H. Thomas): I am not sure what committee the hon. Member has in mind, but I will ask the High Commissioner for Palestine for information in the subject of his inquiry.

Mr. WILLIAMS: When communicating with the High Commissioner, will the right hon. Gentleman ask him to expedite the report of the district commissioner at Jaffa on the conditions of the local work-people?

Mr. THOMAS: I shall certainly include that in the inquiry.

HIGH COMMISSIONER.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when the High Commissioner for Palestine is coming home and what are the reasons for his return?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I have no reason to suppose that the High Commissioner for Palestine contemplates visiting this country in the near future.

IMMIGRATION LAW.

Mr. CREECH JONES: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that under Section 4 (a) of the Immigration Amendment Bill, 1936, proposed by the Palestine Government, if a foreigner is charged with entering Palestine or remaining there as a traveller or on a transit visa after the permitted period, the onus of showing that he is lawfully in Palestine is on the accused person; and whether he will take steps to secure modification of these proposals in conformity with the principles of British law?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I am aware of the provision referred to, and I consider that it is justified in the special circumstances of Palestine, in order that attempts at evasion of the immigration law may be more effectively dealt with.

TELEPHONE SERVICE.

Sir PERCY HARRIS: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the congestion and delay in the telephone service of Palestine, in particular with regard to the delay in obtaining communication between such towns as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa; and whether it is proposed to take any steps


at an early date to remedy this matter and, in particular, to introduce up-to-date apparatus?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: Yes, Sir. Every effort is being made by the Palestine Government to remedy the delay and congestion which have occurred and to introduce the most modern equipment.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA.

HIGHLANDS (BOUNDARIES).

Mr. DONNER: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when it is proposed to issue the Order in Council safeguarding the White Highlands of Kenya, as was recommended in the report of the Carter Commission more than 18 months ago?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: It is the intention of His Majesty's Government that an Order in Council shall be issued to define the boundaries of the Highlands. I am not yet in a position to say when it will be issued.

Mr. DONNER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it will take much longer before the recommendations are carried out?

Mr. THOMAS: I hope not, but it is the intention to give effect to the Commission's report.

Mr. PALING: Is it intended to carry out the recommendations in their entirety; and is it not the fact that in the last 18 months difficulties have cropped up in this regard?

Mr. THOMAS: The recommendations are well known, but the policy of the Government is stated in the White Paper.

LAND (NATIVE REPRESENTATIONS).

Mr. LUNN: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has considered the petition from chief Koinange and other representatives of the Kikuyu people, begging that a deputation be allowed to proceed to London to make representations on the question of native rights in land; and whether, in order to allay the fears of the Kikuyu on this matter, which were noted with concern by the Joint Select Committee on Closer Union in East Africa, he will

encourage the sending of such a deputation?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I have not received any petition asking to be allowed to send a deputation to London. The Land Commission, presided over by Sir Morris Carter, was set up for the purpose of settling the land question in Kenya and I am not prepared to encourage the sending of a deputation. Any tribe which wishes to make representations must do so through the Governor.

Mr. PALING: Is it not a fact that difficulties have cropped up in regard to this question that were not foreseen originally; and is it not time that this question was gone into again of these natives having the right to remain on their own land?

Mr. THOMAS: It may well be that there are difficulties and I would be prepared to answer a question on that point, but nothing could be worse than to give encouragement in this House to the idea that any tribe or any body can appeal to London, irrespective of recognising the Governor on the spot who is there for that purpose.

Mr. PALING: Would it not be right to encourage them in thinking that this Government will care for their rights which they have had from time immemorial?

Mr. THOMAS: It would be right for them to think that this Government will look after their rights, but it would be wrong to encourage them not to recognise the tribunal on the spot to which they should appeal.

Mr. LUNN: Does that mean that in no circumstances, whatever difficulties arise, is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to encourage a deputation of natives?

Mr. THOMAS: No, it does not mean that. It does mean—and no one has emphasised this more than my hon. Friend did when he was in office—that there is a channel for communication and that channel is the Governor. That must always be recognised.

Mr. PALING: May we take it that these grievances will be gone into and attended to before the Order-in-Council is put into operation, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred in answer to a previous question?

Mr. THOMAS: I am afraid that my hon. Friend is confusing two things. The answer which I gave to the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Donner) dealt with the definition of boundaries. I understand my hon. Friend to be asking about a different aspect of the matter.

MINING ROYALTIES.

Mr. LUNN: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in view of the mining developments in Kenya Colony, how the rates of the royalties and other charges payable on the profits of mining undertakings have been fixed; what steps have been taken to secure that due regard shall be paid to the interests of the native community; when these rates and charges were last fixed; whether they are kept under review; and whether they have been increased when circumstances required?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: The rates of royalty and other charges are prescribed by regulations issued under the Mining Ordinance. The last set of regulations was issued in February, 1934. It is possible for them to be reviewed from time to time but royalties have not been increased since that date. The present rate is 5 per cent. on the gross sum realised from the gold won. Other charges, such as fees for licences, leases, etc., are also prescribed in the regulations. With regard to the native community, ample provision exists for compensation for disturbance and the latest report on native affairs draws attention to the fact that disputes and claims are few.

Mr. LUNN: As there are disputes, quite a number of which are well-known to the right hon. Gentleman, is it not time to take this matter into review?

Mr. THOMAS: I have communicated to the Governor my hon. Friend's question, and when I get his report, I shall not hesitate to let the hon. Member know.

PRESS MESSAGES.

Mr. STOREY: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement on the reply of the Government of Kenya to his inquiry about the holding up of Press messages from Nairobi for local and overseas newspapers?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I have not yet received a reply to my inquiry. When I do I will communicate with my hon. Friend.

NORTHERN RHODESIA.

Mr. THURTLE: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to state what action, if any, has been taken as a result of the report of the Commission which inquired into the disturbances in the copper belt of Northern Rhodesia?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave on 19th February to the hon. Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson), and I am sending to the hon. Member copies of the despatches referred to in that reply.

WEST INDIES (SUGAR PRICES).

Mr. JOHN: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the prices obtained by the planters in the West Indies for sugar in 1929, and for each year since that date; and what was the average rate of wages paid to labourers on sugar plantations in each of those years?

Mr. J. H. THOMAS: As the reply is rather long and contains a number of figures, I propose, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

No statistics are available showing the average prices actually realised by West Indian sugar producers, but the following are the average world prices of sugar for the years 1929 to 1935:



Per cwt.



s.
d.


1929
9
0½


1930
6
7


1931
6
3¾


1932
5
9½


1933
5
3


1934
4
8¾


1935
4
7¾

The price realised for British West Indian sugar may be taken as being about 3s. 9d. per cwt. above the world price up to the budget of 1932 and roughly 5s. above it after that budget owing to the operation of preferential duties.

A statement is appended showing the wages in certain of the principal Colonies

Statement showing Average Rate of Wages paid to labourers on sugar plantations in certain West Indian Colonies and British Guiana during the years, 1929 to 1934.


Colony.
1929.
1930.
1931.
1932.
1933.
1934.


Barbados.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.


Men
…
…
1s. 3d. to 2s
1s. 3d. to 2s.
1s. 3d. to 2s.
1s. 3d. to 2s.
1s. 6d. to 2s.
1s. 6d. to 2s.


Women
…
10d. to 1s. 3d.
10d. to 1s. 3d.
10d. to 1s. 3d.
10d. to 1s. 3d.
10d. to 1s. 3d.
10d. to 1s. 3d.


Children
…
6d. to 8d.
6d. to 8d.
6d. to 8d.
6d. to 8d.
6d. to 8d.
6d. to 8d.


British Guiana.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.


Men
…
…
2s.
2s.
2s. 4d.
1s. 10d.
2s. 4d.
2s. 4d.


Women
…
1s. 5d.
1s. 5d.
1s. 4d.
1s. 2d.
1s. 4d.
1s. 4d.


Creoles
…
11d.
11d.
6d. to 1s.
6d. to 9d.
8d. to 1s.
8d. to 1s.


Jamaica
Per week.
Per week.
Per week.
Per week.
Per week.
Per week.


Agricultural workers.
18s.
18s.
18s.
18s.
18s.
18s.


Trinidad and Tobago.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.
Per day.


Skilled
…
$1·20 to
$1·20 to
$1·20 to
$1·20 to
$1·20 to
$1·20 to





$3·00
$3·00
$3·00
$3·00
$3·00
$3·00


Unskilled
…
40 c. to $1·20
40 c. to $1·20
40 c. to $1·20
40 c. to $1·20
40 c. to $1·20
35 c. to 80 c.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

RATIONS (MARGARINE).

Mr. LEACH: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what is the total amount saved annually to his Department by the use of margarine instead of butter?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): An exact calculation is not possible, but the amount may be taken as not less than £25,000.

Mr. LEACH: Will the right hon. Baronet undertake that the meanness of successive Governments, including my own, in this matter will be rectified at an early date?

Sir P. SASSOON: It is a question of expense. Of course we act in conformity with the practice in the older services which have to provide for far larger numbers of personnel.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Does the right hon. Gentleman not consider that the Air service is a long way in advance of the older services?

AUXILIARY SQUADRON (CHESHIRE).

Mr. HULBERT: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air when he

as returned in the Government Blue Books for the years 1929 to 1934.

anticipates the County of Cheshire auxiliary bombing squadron will be fully equipped and with what type of aircraft?

Sir P. SASSOON: The squadron will be equipped with training type aircraft for ab initio training and with a light bomber type for service duties. The formation of the squadron at Hooton is in progress, but I cannot yet say when it will be completed.

PROPOSED AERODROME, CANNOCK CHASE.

Mr. ADAMSON: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he has considered the representations for an aerodrome to be established on the part of Cannock Chase previously occupied as a military camp; and if his Department has considered whether the available land is suitable for such a project?

Sir P. SASSOON: Representations received some 18 months ago are being borne in mind in case a Royal Air Force aerodrome in the locality should be found necessary.

AEROPLANE INDUSTRY.

Mr. PARKER: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether the reduction in the Supplementary Estimate for the cost of aeroplanes means that the industry is unable to produce on the scale


required by the Government; and whether the Government consequently propose to make the industry more efficient by taking it under public ownership and control?

Sir P. SASSOON: The answer to the first part is in the negative; the second part does not, therefore, arise.

Oral Answers to Questions — AVIATION.

FLYING CLUBS.

Mr. HULBERT: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the number of flying clubs in receipt of subsidies as at 31st December, 1934, and 31st December, 1935, and the number of A licensed pilots on the roll of membership of such clubs at the same dates?

Sir P. SASSOON: Thirty clubs and 1,823 pilots on 31st December, 1934, and 42 clubs and 2,489 pilots on 31st December, 1935. I should add that there are a large number of flying members in addition who do not hold "A" licences.

PROPOSED TRANS-ATLANTIC SERVICE.

Mr. HULBERT: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what is the attitude of the Air Ministry on the subject of the grant of a subsidy for a trans-Atlantic airship service; and whether such a subsidy will receive sympathetic consideration despite the existing agreement with Imperial Airways?

Sir P. SASSOON: There is no present intention of granting a subsidy for the establishment of a trans-Atlantic airship service, though this is not precluded by the arrangements with Imperial Airways.

Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: Will the Minister, before he gives any subsidy to these folk, see that the people who have to eat £25,000 worth of margarine get butter instead?

OWNER-PILOTS.

Lord APSLEY: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the number of private owners flying their own machines who held flying licences in 1935 and the corresponding number in 1934 and 1928, respectively?

Sir P. SASSOON: The precise information asked for is not available. The num-

ber of aircraft used for private purposes at the end of 1935 was 589, the corresponding figures for 1934 and 1928 being 478 and 125 respectively. The number of private owners is now about 500; some own more than one aircraft.

Lord APSLEY: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the number of owner-pilots who had less than ten hours and more than 100 hours of flying, respectively, registered on their pilot's logbooks during the year for which renewal of their flying licences was applied for in 1935, 1934, and 1928, respectively?

Sir P. SASSOON: I regret that the information desired by my Noble Friend is not available.

Lord APSLEY: Is the Minister aware that every owner has to send in his logbook and supply complete information as to the flying hours for each year, in order to get his licence and that this year further particulars are being asked from private owners who have to fill up forms giving those particulars and whether such an expensive department ought to be maintained for inquiring into all these matters when simple information such as I have inquired for is not made available?

Sir P. SASSOON: The renewal of licences by the Air Ministry is given on evidence being produced that the minimum number of hours flying has been performed by the owner of the aircraft in the past 12 months. The Air Ministry do not propose to keep all the statistics of the flying hours of every individual owner.

Lord APSLEY: Is it not the case, that every detail is inquired for by the Air Ministry; and is the Minister aware that in my own case they kept my log-book for three weeks and that I had to write to them to get it back.

Sir P. SASSOON: That shows that it must have been a very interesting book.

IMPERIAL AIRWAYS, LIMITED.

Mrs. TATE: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the number of unscheduled landings, due to lack of fuel, made by Imperial Airways machines operating during 1934 on the London-Egypt, Egypt-South Africa, and Egypt-India-Singapore routes, respectively?

Sir P. SASSOON: Imperial Airways arrangements include provision for stops


for refuelling, when occasion requires, at aerodromes or landing grounds not scheduled in their published time-tables. No record exists at the Air Ministry of such landings, which present no abnormal feature in operating conditions which necessitate them. I am informed that there were no forced landings due to lack of fuel in 1934.

Mrs. TATE: In view of the very serious consequences that landings due to lack of fuel may have, would it not be advisable that these landings should in future be scheduled?

Sir P. SASSOON: These are not in any way forced landings.

Mr. SIMMONDS: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air under what terms Imperial Airways, Limited, have agreed to surrender their privileged position on air lines north of the line London-Berlin?

Sir P. SASSOON: The Board of Imperial Airways agreed readily, and without conditions of any sort, to waive their contractual rights in the area in question. They further undertook to co-operate fully with any new undertaking in this field to which His Majesty's Government might decide to give financial assistance, and I should like to take this opportunity of paying a tribute to their public-spirited attitude.

Mr. SIMMONDS: Does this mean that Imperial Airways may still compete with the subsidised companies on this particular route, although not themselves receiving a subsidy?

Sir P. SASSOON: Imperial Airways will co-operate with them if necessary, but they have waived their rights to subsidy over this route, as I said in my original answer.

Mr. BELLENGER: Have they promised that they will not fly over this route in competition with this new subsidised company?

Sir P. SASSOON: Well, they have surrendered their privileges over this route, so why should they wish to run a service?

Mr. GARRO - JONES: Has the surrender been accomplished without any compensation whatever?

Sir P. SASSOON: Yes, Sir.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: Is the surrender irrevocable, or can they change their minds and compete with the new company, or is it merely in the discretion of the Ministry?

Sir P. SASSOON: There is nothing mysterious behind it at all, and there is no reason why the hon. Member should be so full of suspicion.

Mr. GARRO-JONES: Is the surrender contractually irrevocable? Can the right hon. Gentleman answer that?

Mr. PERKINS: Did the right hon. Gentleman not say last week that Imperial Airways were starting services with Deutsche Lufthause and sending over two pilots to prospect the facilities for night flying?

Sir P. SASSOON: Yes, but only between Croydon and Berlin.

"CITY OF KHARTOUM."

Mr. SIMMONDS: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air whether he has arranged for either the salvage of the hull of the flying-boat "City of Khartoum," or its inspection by a diver, in order that certain important technical questions arising from this disaster may be answered?

Sir P. SASSOON: The wreckage has already been inspected several times by divers, and the three engines were recovered. Attempts were also made to raise the aircraft as a whole, but without success, and according to my latest information the idea of salvage has had, therefore, to be finally abandoned.

Mr. SIMMONDS: Can my right hon. Friend say whether, in view of the large concourse of naval personnel at Alexandria now, it is not possible to obtain the services of an Admiralty diver to inspect this hull so as to obtain certain technical information which it is most essential that we should possess in order that this grave disaster may be solved?

Sir P. SASSOON: I gather that all that it is possible to do in this connection has been done.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

PEDESTRIAN CROSSING-PLACES.

Mr. DAY: asked the Minister of Transport whether, with a view to further reducing road casualties and as a warning to pedestrians as to the dangers of not exercising caution when crossing roads, he will consider having prominently painted on the surface of the roads at all dangerous crossings the words, "Look before you cross"?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Mr. Hore-Belisha): This is frequently done in appropriate cases.

Mr. DAY: Does not the Minister agree that if this was done more than it is, it would make the pedestrian public more careful before crossing the road?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Yes, I think it should be done in appropriate cases, but it is for the highway authorities to take action wherever it may be required.

Mr. DAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider getting into communication with highway authorities to see that they do make use of this warning?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: There is a variety of conditions, and I should hesitate to issue a circular on the subject, but I think the fact that the hon. Member has asked these questions will draw attention to the matter.

MOTOR-CAR HEADLIGHTS.

Mr. DAY: asked the Minister of Transport whether his Department has yet had brought to its notice, or has discovered, any adequate anti-dazzle motorcar headlight lamps to eliminate dazzle, and at the same time providing a satisfactory driving light which is not dependent on dipping or turning, and which satisfies all other requirements of his Department?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: No, Sir.

ROAD TRANSPORT FACILITIES.

Mr. HALL-CAINE: asked the Minister of Transport what complaints or deputations he has received complaining of the results of Sub-section (2) of Section 11 of the Road Traffic Act, 1933, so far as road transport operations are concerned; and whether he will consider introducing amending legislation in this respect?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Parliament recently decided to establish machinery for enabling objections to be lodged and considered, and it is for the licensing authorities and not for me to decide what weight should be attached to them. I should not presume, on the evidence before me, to invite Parliament to overthrow a system which provides a judicial method of furnishing the community with goods transport facilities in an orderly way.

MOTOR-CAR DESIGN (RANGE OF VISION).

Mr. SHORT: asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that the design of the modern motor-car has a tendency to limit the range of vision of the driver, thereby contributing to road accidents; and will he consult the motor manufacturers relative to this matter, with a view to preventing this cause of accidents?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I am aware of this tendency, and I am in consultation with the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders on the matter.

LONDON (WESTERN EXIT).

Mr. SIMMONDS: asked the Minister of Transport whether detailed investigations have been made by his Department into the proposal to construct a certain portion of the new western exit from London over the railway track of the London Passenger Transport Board; and what was the estimated cost of this alternative scheme?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for South Kensington. (Sir W. Davison) on Wednesday, 19th February, which I do not feel that I can amplify.

Mr. SIMMONDS: In view of the special feature of this type of road that no pedestrian can be killed thereon, does not my right hon. Friend think that the saving of lives of pedestrians would justify him in spending a little more money in order to improve the safety of the roads in this section of London?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I am ready to receive any helpful suggestions for the improvement of the present situation, and whenever a scheme is put before me that is practicable I shall be very glad to encourage it. It is merely a question of the merits of any particular proposals.

DRIVERS (HOURS).

Mr. THORNE: asked the Minister of Transport whether he has received a report from the traffic commissioners relative to the prosecution of a transport contractor at Taunton who was fined £6 10s. for permitting two employés to drive lorries excessive hours, one of whom had 13 times worked more than 14 hours per day; how many similar cases have occurred in the past 12, months; and will he take steps to protect vehicle drivers against loss of employment if they communicate with the Ministry about the excessive hours they are compelled to work?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Such cases are not reported to me. I am sure that the authorities fully appreciate the necessity of taking such steps as they can to prevent drivers being unfairly penalised.

BECKHAMPTON, WILTS (CROSS ROADS).

Sir PERCY HURD: asked the Minister of Transport whether his attention has been called to the frequency of serious accidents at the Beckhampton cross roads, Wiltshire; and whether he can assist in fulfilling the wish of the justices that immediate steps be taken for their prevention?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Yes, Sir, and I am ready to make a grant for an improvement, which has been delayed owing to difficulties—I hope soon to be overcome—in the way of acquiring the necessary land.

Sir P. HURD: Will the grant be sufficient to enable this important work to be carried through?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I think amply sufficient.

CYCLE TRACKS (SCOTLAND).

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: asked the Minister of Transport whether it is proposed to construct any new cycle tracks for the benefit of bicyclists on Scottish roads?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Yes, Sir. Seven miles of cycle tracks have been already proposed by Scottish authorities, and I shall give every encouragement to proposals for the construction of further tracks where these appear to be desirable.

Mr. MESSER: Does the word "bicycle" mean that no tricycles will be allowed on the tracks?

Mr. DUNCAN: Has my right hon. Friend received any representations against cycling tracks from Scottish cycling organisations?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Not so far as my recollection serves me, but I should not be surprised if I had received representations from them.

MOTOR CAR PARKING.

Captain PLUGGE: asked the Minister of Transport whether in view of the fact that the French authorities have successfully introduced for the last 10 years the system of parking cars on alternate days on different sides of the streets, he will consider the desirability of adopting a similar practice in this country; and, if his Department is adverse to any such action, whether he will state what are the reasons actuating it?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I have already confirmed a number of Orders made by local authorities which establish systems of this kind, and I am always ready to take similar action when a local authority makes application for this purpose and when local conditions justify.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Does not the Minister think it very much better to have separate parking places than to allow the parking of cars all down a busy street which is very inconvenient?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I entirely identify myself with the suggestion in that question. Parliament has given local authorities full powers to provide proper accommodation, and I hope that they will avail themselves of their powers.

Mr. A. BEVAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a motorist runs greater risk of prosecution by parking in a public parking place than by parking on a public highway?

Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASS: Will my right hon. Friend recommend local authorities to use their powers in this matter?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I will consider that.

FORTH AND TAY BRIDGES.

Mr. MATHERS: asked the Minister of Transport whether he has received any reply to his request for traffic figures to justify the erection of the projected Forth and Tay road-bridges; and whether, if he has not already got the required information in his possession, he will now indicate to the local authorities precisely what information he requires?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I am in communication with the authorities concerned.

Mr. MATHERS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the widespread opinion that nobody is better able than himself to supply the information from Census returns and other means at his disposal which are not at the disposal of the local authorities?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I think that that is a somewhat paradoxical point of view. As the highway authorities in a certain part of Scotland are making a request to me to incur an expenditure which amounts to about £5,500,000, I called upon them to justify the traffic case on which this request was made.

Mr. MATHERS: Is this the first time that the traffic case has been asked to be justified? Have no efforts been made during the long years in which this matter has been in hand to get some estimate which can only be conjectural with regard to traffic justification?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: In the past it has been purely a technical question as to whether a bridge could be built and, if so, at which spot. Before making the grant I requested an investigation to find out whether the proposition was practical from the engineering point of view. I am satisfied that it is practicable, and it is now a question of whether it can be justified on traffic grounds having regard to the vast expenditure involved, and I am prepared to listen to the case.

Mr. MATHERS: Has nothing been done in the way of providing probable figures of traffic results prior to this time?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: For many years past there have been conjectures, but I

desire to make it plain that I must be satisfied there is a case, and I am not satisfied.

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (TECHNICAL ASSISTANTS).

Sir WILLIAM DAVISON: asked the Minister of Transport how many technical assistants, as distinct from clerical and other workers, are employed by the Ministry, and what are their aggregate salaries?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Full particulars of the technical and non-technical staff of the Ministry are to be found in the Estimates, but if my hon. Friend requires tabulation on some other basis and will send me particulars, I will readily do what I can to furnish them.

Sir W. DAVISON: Does my right hon. Friend consider that his technical staff is sufficient to enable him to form full conclusions on the very many important matters in his charge, and does he consider that the salaries which these gentlemen are paid are adequate to secure the very best men for this important work?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: It would be my duty to make requests for additional officers or for additional salaries if I were not satisfied.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEFENCE SERVICES.

ARMAMENTS INDUSTRY (PROFITS).

Mr. PARKER: asked the Prime Minister what steps the Government propose to take to implement the promise that no excessive profits will be made in the production of war material?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): I can add nothing to what I have said in reply to previous questions on this subject, to which I would refer the hon. Member.

Mr. PARKER: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to take any special step to prevent Members of this House or of another place profiteering out of the Government's rearmament programme?

Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Have any of those previous questions supplied the faintest indication of any such profiteering?

Mr. GARRO-JONES: Will the right hon. Gentleman be able to place before the House some specific plan. While recognising the difficulties shall we know what the Government proposals are?

The PRIME MINISTER: Whenever the occasion should arise, of course that will be done.

FUEL OIL.

Mr. MACLAY: asked the Prime Minister in view of the large turnover from coal fuel to oil fuel in transport and industry, what authority is responsible for estimating the probable requirements and reserves of fuel oil necessary for civil, military, and naval use in this country in the event of war; and whether the authority is a central co-ordinating one in touch with all the probable increased demands for oil and petrol likely to arise instantly in the event of war, especially from industrial users?

The PRIME MINISTER: There is a standing Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence, on which all the Service as well as -the Civil Departments concerned are represented, which is the central co-ordinating authority and keeps regularly under review the matters referred to by the hon. Member.

Mr. MACLAY: In view of the fact that much of our oil supplies come in by seaborne tanks, will the Prime Minister assure himself, in view of the importance of oil supplies to this country, that those who are responsible for these calculations and estimates are fully alive to the fact that tank tonnage is more vulnerable than any other sea-going vessels to the new form of attack from the air and to underwater attack, and will he assure himself that they arc fully alive to the fact that any calculations based on the experience of losses in the last war are very liable to be wrong?

The PRIME MINISTER: I can assure my hon. Friend that there is represented on this body a very large amount of expert knowledge, and that they are in very close and constant touch with the whole oil situation.

PARLIAMENT SQUARE.

Sir W. DAVISON: asked the Prime Minister whether the Government will avail itself of the opportunity which has arisen for removing the block of buildings

standing in Parliament Square known as Westminster House, immediately behind the statue of Canning; and, seeing that this is a national and not merely a civic improvement, will he get into touch with the Middlesex County Council and the London County Council on the matter, as these two public bodies are prepared to assist in providing the necessary expenditure which will enable the site to be cleared thereby adding to the amenities both of the Houses of Parliament and of Westminster Abbey?

The PRIME MINISTER: This question has been carefully considered by the Government, who have reached the conclusion that the proposed improvement is not one which would justify a departure from the ordinary practice that the cost of improvements to cities should be paid for by local authorities. Consequently, they could not approve the application of the taxpayer's money to this purpose.

Sir W. DAVISON: Would my right hon. Friend not consider that Parliament Square, which is bounded on two sides by the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey and on the third side by Government offices, is a matter which is a very special trust to the Imperial Government, and especially to the National Government, and is he aware that a grant of a little over £100,000 from the Treasury would secure this national improvement for ever to the public, and that the land would be handed over to the Office of Works for permanent occupation?

The PRIME MINISTER: If that sum would really be the limit, I cannot think it is beyond the power of London itself to provide it.

Sir W. DAVISON: Will my right hon. Friend confer with the London County Council and the Middlesex County Council on this matter?

The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot give any undertaking for the moment.

Mr. MESSER: Is it not a fact that it was the financial barons who prevented the Middlesex County Council taking over this land some time ago?

TRADE NEGOTIATIONS.

Mr. HALL-CAINE: asked the President of the Board of Trade with which foreign countries trade negotiations are


now taking place or contemplated; whether any such negotiations with the United States of America are likely to take place in the near future; and whether he will provide a list of those countries with which no trade negotiations of any kind have taken place since 1931?

Captain EUAN WALLACE (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): Commercial negotiations are taking place with Peru and arrangements have been made for further discussions with Denmark. The Government, following their declared policy, have under constant review the possibility of negotiating trade agreements with foreign countries. Informal exchanges of views have taken place from time to time with the United States of America, with the object of ascertaining whether a basis exists for negotiations but these exchanges have so far been of a purely exploratory nature. In reply to the last part of the question, I think that my hon. Friend's purpose will best be served by circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of foreign countries with which trade and payments agreements have been concluded since 1931.

Mr. KIRKPATRICK: Is it not a fact that 15 months ago, in answer to a question put by me, it was indicated that an agreement with Peru was about to be entered upon? Does it take 15 months to make any progress?

Captain WALLACE: No, the 15 months have been taken up in making the agreement.

Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Can my hon. and gallant Friend assure us that if there are any negotiations with the United States, one of the conditions will be that they will stop by subsidies driving the British Mercantile Marine off the Pacific Ocean?

Following are the countries:


Argentina.
Netherlands.


Brazil.
Norway.


Denmark.
Poland.


Estonia.
Rumania.


Finland.
Spain.


France.
Sweden.


Germany.
Turkey.


Hungary.
Uruguay.


Iceland.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.


Italy.


Latvia.


Lithuania.

DEBT RECOVERY AGENTS.

Mr. HALL-CAINE: asked the Attorney-General whether he is aware of the activities of debt recovery agents in threatening poor persons with regard to the consequences of not meeting accounts; and whether he will cause an inquiry to be made into the increase in the use of such agents for the collection of debts?

The SOLICITOR - GENERAL (Sir Donald Somervell): I do not think that an inquiry would serve any useful purpose. If a creditor merely threatens to enforce his legal rights, that is not unlawful, whether he employs an agent or not. The criminal law has recently been strengthened so as to prohibit dunning letters which have the appearance of having been issued under the authority of the county court. If that is the kind of offence which my hon. Friend has in mind, any particular cases of which he is aware should be brought to the attention of the police authorities or the Director of Public Prosecutions, and proper inquiry will be made.

Mr. BEVAN: Has the hon. and learned Gentleman made no real inquiry to find out the extent of this abuse? Is he not aware that poor people are subject to a great deal of intimidation, and that in particular ex-police officers have been employed in large numbers and that they use methods which are wholly undesirable?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I have answered the question. If a creditor threatens to enforce his legal rights that is not unlawful. If the hon. Member has any evidence in his possession which he thinks amounts to an abuse or will justify consideration, I shall be ready to comsider it.

Mr. BEVAN: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman write to the registrars of the courts and find out their experience? They are all indignant about this practice. The hon. and learned Gentleman has taken no real steps to find out about it. Will he do so?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I say that if the hon. Member has evidence in his possession which he thinks will justify the course of action he suggests. I will consider it.

Mr. BEVAN: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman make the necessary inquiries to find out the facts before he answers the question in the House?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: Not in the absence of evidence that such inquiries are necessary.

Mr. BEVAN: Is not an hon. Member's question enough?

CONTRIBUTORY PENSIONS (WIDOWS).

Mr. GUY: asked the Minister of Health the average age at which widows are granted the widows' contributory pension under the 1925 and 1929 Acts?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): According to the latest information obtainable, the average age at which widows obtain pensions under the Contributory Pensions Acts of 1925 and 1929 is 55½.

Mr. ELLIS SMITH: Will the Minister consider applying the same principle in connection with this pension Measure as is applied in the Pensions (Governors of Dominions, etc.) Bill?

MINERS' WELFARE (REST HOMES).

Mr. SHORT: asked the Secretary for Mines whether the Miners' Welfare Fund Committee have at any time considered the desirability of providing rest homes for aged miners; and, if so, with what result?

Captain WALLACE: I have been asked to reply. The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second part, so far, 24 grants totalling £64,413 10s. have been made from district funds for the erection of aged miners' homes or for endowment to provide for maintenance of such homes. I am sending the hon. Member a detailed statement.

Mr. PALING: What is the possibility of contributing to rest homes or anything else out of this fund at this time?

COURT OF SESSION, SCOTLAND (JUDGES).

Captain SHAW: asked the Lord Advocate whether he will consider review-

ing the question of the strength of the bench in the Court of Session, having regard to the decline of the work of the Court in Edinburgh; and whether, in the event of future vacancies on the bench, regard will be had to possible economies similar to those which have been effected by the amalgamation of sheriffdoms in different counties?

The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. T. M. Cooper): The constitution of the Court of Session is regulated by statute, and no alteration in the number of judges could be effected without legislation. The Royal Commission on the Court of Session reported in 1927 against any reduction in the number of judges, and the Administration of Justice (Scotland) Act, 1933, was passed into law with certain provisions for the amalgamation of sheriffdoms but with no provision for a reduction in the number of judges. The reforms in procedure introduced by that Act and by the new Rules of Court are now being brought into full operation, and it is my considered opinion that any economy which might be effected by a reduction in the number of judges could only be secured at the cost of the impaired efficiency of the judicial machinery of Scotland and of material detriment to the public interest.

AIR MAILS.

Mrs. TATE: asked the Postmaster-General (1) the sums paid to Imperial Airways for the carriage of mail on the London-Egypt and Egypt-Capetown routes during the years 1934 and 1935;
(2) the sums paid to Imperial Airways for the carriage of mail on the Egypt-India and India-Australia routes during the years 1934 and 1935?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Walter Womersley): The total payments to Imperial Airways for the carriage of mails, including mails carried for other Postal Administrations, on the England-South Africa and the England-India-Malaya services for the years 1934 and 1935 were £290,000 and £525,000 respectively. I am not in a position to state what sums were attributable to the sections of the routes specifically mentioned by my hon. Friend. Payments for the use of the air service between Singapore and the Australian terminal are due to be made to the Australian Government.

Mr. LEACH: Will the hon. Member say whether these figures represent a paying proposition to the Department?

Sir W. WOMERSLEY: I could not give that answer without notice, but I should imagine they do, as regards the Department.

BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION.

Captain SHAW: asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the British Broadcasting Corporation earned a profit last year on the issue of publications of £421,576; and whether steps will be taken to amend the charter of the corporation to prevent them using their wireless advertising facilities further to develop competition against the private enterprise of printers and publishers?

Sir W. WOMERSLEY: The answer to the first part of my hon. and gallant Friend's question is in the affirmative. As regards the latter part, I cannot make any statement on this point pending the outcome of the Government's consideration of the Ullswater Committee's Report.

Captain SHAW: Will the hon. Gentleman give us some assurance that this competition will be stopped?

Sir W. WOMERSLEY: I must ask my hon. Friend to await the Government's consideration of the Report.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with his hon. Friend that the Government ought to have charge only of non-paying undertakings?

Sir W. WOMERSLEY: No, Sir.

SCHOOL-LEAVING AGE.

Mr. BOSSOM: asked the President of the Board of Education whether he has received a copy of the resolution on the subject of the school-leaving age passed by the Association of Education Committees at a special meeting at Caxton Hall, on 10th February; and whether, before considering that resolution, he will cause an analysis to be made of the constitution of the meeting and the voting thereat, with a view to ascertaining how many of those present voted

under authority from their respective committees?

Sir JAMES BLINDELL (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend has received a copy of the resolution referred to. He has no means of ascertaining to what extent the votes cast by those present at the meeting represent the views of their respective committees.

Mr. BOSSOM: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this resolution is supposed to be representative of 300 members of the association, but that many of these committees had not even met when this resolution was come to at Caxton Hall?

Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Does the hon. Gentleman know of any reason why he should take any notice of the resolution?

Mr. COVE: Is it the charge that they misrepresented their authorities?

NEWFOUNDLAND (DEVELOPMENT GRANTS).

Mr. LUNN: asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he can make any statement on the advance made to Newfoundland from the Colonial Development Fund; and whether it will contribute, and to what extent, to employment in the fisheries or on the land?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION, AFFAIRS (Mr. Douglas Hacking): The total assistance from the Colonial Development Fund to the Newfoundland Government which has so far been approved amounts to £670,500. This sum includes two loans of £100,000 each in respect of schemes for fishery development and land settlement. These are designed to assist in relieving the unemployment position both by a rehabilitation of the fishery industry and by providing employment on the land.

Mr. LUNN: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the last part of my question, which asks how far this £670,000 has contributed to finding employment?

Mr. HACKING: I have given the amount of the grants, but, of course, it is quite impossible to say exactly how much employment has resulted from any particular grant.

Mr. LUNN: But can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any improvement has come out of this expenditure, or is there likely to be any improvement?

Mr. HACKING: Yes, there has been an improvement, and I should imagine there will be a still greater improvement.

Mr. BELLENGER: Can the right hon. Gentleman say the rate of interest charged for these loans?

Mr. HACKING: No, Sir; not without notice.

JUVENILE EMPLOYMENT.

Mr. SORENSEN: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether lift boys and page boys in all types of clubs and flats are, or will be, included in the terms of reference of the Hours of Work in Unregulated Trades Committee?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): No, Sir. I would refer the hon. Member to the first part of the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) on 10th February.

INDECENCY CHARGES (LEYTON).

Mr. SORENSEN: asked the Home Secretary the number of men and women, respectively, who have been charged during the past 12 months with offences against public decency in the vicinity of Whipps Cross Road, Leyton?

Mr. LLOYD: Two men and 23 women were charged with offences of the kind indicated.

Mr. SORENSEN: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many of them were discharged?

Mr. LLOYD: I could not say without notice.

HYDE PARK (POLICE SUPERVISION).

Mr. DAY: asked the Home Secretary the total daily average number of police officers detailed for duty in Hyde Park during the months of May to October,

1935, inclusive; whether their duty includes the enforcement of the park regulations; how many persons were apprehended by the police during that period; how many convictions were obtained; and whether he is considering recommending the better lighting of Hyde Park?

Mr. LLOYD: The average number of police on duty during this period was 57 of all ranks, including six policewomen. Their duties include the enforcement of the park regulations. They made 668 arrests, resulting in 643 convictions. The question of lighting the park is, I understand, receiving the consideration of my right hon. Friend the First Commissioner.

Mr. DAY: Are all the police on duty there in uniform, or are some of them in private clothes?

CENSORSHIP (AMERICAN JOURNAL).

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that on several occasions the American weekly journal "Time" has been censored, that the issue for 10th February has a full half column blotted out on page 18 and pages 19 and 20 torn out; and on whose authority this censorship is exercised, and the reason?

Mr. LLOYD: I have no information on the subject.

Mr. MACLEAN: As the hon. Member knows of nothing having been done by his Department, will he find out who is censoring these papers sent here from America?

Mr. LLOYD: The hon. Member is quite right in thinking it has not been done by my Department. There is no Press censorship by the Government in this country.

Mr. MACLEAN: Will the hon. Member take steps to find out who is tearing pages out of journals and blacking out print—journals which are circulated in this country and for which subscribers have paid?

Mr. LLOYD: I am sure the hon. Member will realise that we cannot be responsible for the action of any private person who does this, but I will certainly


make inquiries in order to find out, if I can do so, and let him know.

Mr. MACLEAN: If I send the hon. Gentleman a copy of the paper to which this censorship is being applied, will he take steps to find out who does it?

Mr. LLOYD: If the hon. Member will send it along.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

CASUAL WORKERS, BLACKBURN.

Mr. THORNE: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware that the Blackburn Rural Council gave temporary employment to about 30 men, who were on transitional benefit, and that the amount they earned was deducted from their benefit and that in one case a man was actually out of pocket; and what action he intends taking to stop the penalising of men who are willing to work?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Lieut.-Colonel Muirhead): I am informed by the Unemployment Assistance Board that they are unable to trace these cases. If the hon. Member will supply me with particulars I will communicate further with the Board.

Mr. THORNE: Is the hon. and gallant Member not aware that the men in question were engaged for the purpose of clearing snow? If he has not the information I will supply it.

SEASONAL WORKERS ORDER.

Mr. GRAHAM WHITE: asked the Minister of Labour the latest available figures of claims and disallowances made under the Seasonal Workers Order of 29th August, 1935?

Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: Between 2nd September, 1935, and 31st January, 1936, 8,956 claims by seasonal workers were disallowed under the Anomalies Order by Courts of Referees in Great Britain. Statistics are not available as to the total number of claims made by seasonal workers.

FOOD (NEWSPAPER WRAPPINGS).

Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS (for Mr. C. S. TAYLOR): asked the Minister of

Health whether he is aware of the practice among retail butchers and fishmongers of purchasing old newspapers, which may be contaminated and carriers of disease, for the purpose of wrapping up meat or fish sold in retail shops; and whether he will take steps to make this practice illegal and ensure the use of clean grease-proof paper for these purposes?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: My right hon. Friend is aware of this practice, which on general grounds of cleanliness is to be deprecated, but he is advised that there is no definite evidence that the wrapping of meat or fish in newspapers is a factor in the spread of disease, and he would not therefore be justified in taking the steps suggested by my hon. Friend.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Would my hon. Friend ask his technical experts to find out what is the effect, of wrapping fish and chips in the "Daily Herald"?

Mr. GARRO-JONES: May not the practice of using these newspapers to wrap up fish be necessary in case the purchasers wish to use them as reading matter?

JAPAN (SITUATION).

Mr. ATTLEE (by Private Notice): asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any information to give the House with reference to the recent events in Japan?

Mr. EDEN: His Majesty's Ambassador in Tokyo reports that attacks were made early this morning on leading Japanese statesmen and officials at their private houses, apparently by groups of young officers. I deeply regret to have to inform the House that, according to these reports, the Prime Minister, Admiral Okada, the Minister of Finance, Mr. Takahashi, and Admiral Saito, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, were killed. General Watanabe, Director-General of Military Education, was wounded. It is reported that several other statesmen were attacked, but I have no information that they were injured. The Bank of Japan has suspended business, troops line the streets, and all public buildings and official residences are guarded. The latest telegram from His Majesty's Ambassador reports, however, that all is quiet in the city.

Mr. THORNE: Can the right hon. Gentleman state to which school of thought these men belong?

Mr. BEVAN: Does this not show what happens to a nation when the Army takes charge?

Mr. McENTEE: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information as to whether any arrests have been made as a consequence of these events?

Mr. EDEN: I am afraid that I have no information beyond what I have given to the House, except that, so far as I am aware, no British interests are in any danger.

Mr. BELLENGER: Have any extraordinary measures been taken for the protection of British subjects?

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS.

LOCATION OF INDUSTRY.

Mr. A. EDWARDS: I beg to give notice that upon this day fortnight I shall call attention to the location of industry, and move a Resolution.

ARMAMENTS MANUFACTURE (CONTROL OF PROFITS).

Mr. LUNN: I beg to give notice that upon this day fortnight I shall call attention to the public control of profits out of the manufacture of armaments, and move a Resolution.

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.

Mr. PALING: I beg to give notice that upon this day fortnight I shall call attention to the condition of the people, and move a Resolution.

SEXUAL OFFENCES (PENALTIES).

Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: I beg to give notice that upon this day fortnight I shall call attention to the necessity for stronger penalties for sexual offences, and move a Resolution.

UNIVERSITY FRANCHISE.

3.46 p.m.

Mr. VIANT: I beg to move,
That, in the opinion of this House, the university franchise should be abolished.
The subject for discussion this afternoon is one that has caused considerable controversy, not only in this House but in the country. To most people, the existence of university representation and university franchise is somewhat of an anomaly in a democratic State. We have, in the main, what is known as adult suffrage, although it is not quite complete; none the less, adult suffrage in its completeness is the aim and the object we have. When one approaches the subject of university representation and the university franchise, one naturally asks oneself when they were instituted. After research, one finds that they were introduced for the first time in 1603 by James I, but no one seems to be able to say for what reason. No reason can be advanced for special representation of universities. Such eminent authorities as Lecky and Bryce express very strong opinions concerning university representation and the university franchise. In 1884, when the subject was under discussion in this House, Professor Bryce, speaking of the representatives and the members of the universities, claimed that it was bad for them, because it introduced political questions into educational questions. He objected also that no constituencies were less independent than the universities, and he said:
The time has now arrived when it becomes desirable to dismiss the device of the Stuart Kings to the limbo to which so many other of their devices have been relegated.
We have no reason to take exception to that point of view this afternoon. Lecky, in his History of England, used these words:
The political influence of the universities has been almost uniformly hostile to political progress.
I believe it is almost common experience that, with very few exceptions, the universities, while they have given a considerable amount of knowledge, have none the less, through their representatives, been averse to all progress. My feeling is that those who have been through a university must feel that there is something wrong when some of them get up in this House and claim that they

speak for their university. The universities have adequate representation in this House, without having a special representation.
During the history of this century, when the subject of the franchise has been under discussion, various tests have been advanced whereby a basis might be established upon which the franchise could be given. A few years ago, when considering this subject myself, I was fortunate in obtaining two volumes of the Socialist Library, published by the Independent Labour Party. They were entitled "Socialism and Government." The writer of those two volumes was at that time a Member of this House, and is at the present time the Lord President of the Council. I may say that I rather regret his absence this afternoon. For the purposes of greater accuracy, I am going to read a few quotations from this book, on the subject of the university franchise. The author is trying to suggest in this chapter a sound basis upon which a franchise should be granted. Discussing the university franchise, he says:
Here a further proposal suggests itself. Can we not devise some educational test which might have the effect of reducing the influence of the demoralised section of the electorate? Might we not give the holders of certain educational degrees two votes and so extend the principle of the separate representation of universities? Or, might we not impose some educational qualification upon applicants for the franchise in the same way as immigrants to the United States are tested? Once more the practical difficulties first of all press themselves upon us. What are we to test? Obviously, not merely knowledge, for the wayside loafer would not be weeded out and there is much knowledge inside prison gates. If it is anything, it must be character, judgment and intelligence. But these are just the qualities which elude school-book tests such as this would have to be. The ranks of university representatives consist of an almost unbroken line of men whose academic and professional distinction seems to have prevented them from attaining to Parliamentary influence and outstanding political eminence…. The almost uniform lack of political enlightenment which university representatives have shown, so far from recommending an extension of such representation, has brought it into disrepute… A successful career at a university is occasionally the indication that a vast darkness has settled down upon a man's mind on all matters of human concern… Civic capacity, and college and examination capacity, are very far from being one and the same thing. Dealing with only one point of difference, it must be obvious to everyone that educational tests are not tests of an educated opinion


so much as of a class distinction which can pay high fees, and an intellectual mechanism which is no indication of anything beyond the fact that at the time of examination it could answer certain questions.

Mr. PICKTHORN: What is the date of that?

Mr. VIANT: It is still on sale, but I should be pleased to lend it to the hon. Member.

Mr. PICKTHORN: That shows an incapacity to answer questions.

Mr. VIANT: I understand that to-day the qualification for the university franchise is that a degree shall have been obtained at any university forming, or forming part of, the constituency. The representation of the universities to-day is far in excess, even if the principle were admitted, of what it should be, considering the representation of other parts of the country. The Oxford University electorate to-day is 22,414, and it has two Members; that of Cambridge University is 33,617, and again there are two Members; London University has an electorate of 17,817, with one Member; the combined English Universities, 26,809, with two Members; the University of Wales, 7,325, with one Member; the Scottish Universities, 52,981, with three members; and Queen's University, Belfast, has an electorate of 3,729, with one Member. The universities are represented by 12 Members, and their total electorate is 164,692. In addition to this undue representation, one has to consider the other aspect of the subject. It perpetuates plural voting; it gives an unfair advantage to a section of the community whose interests are invariably well cared for in this House and in the country at large.
That is not all. Let us consider the disparity in the representation in this House as between the 164,692 university electors and the electors of some other constituencies. The 12 representatives in this House of the universities represent, on an average, an electorate of 13,724 each. The electorate of the Welsh boroughs exceeds the electorate of the universities by more than twice, yet they have one Member less. Nor is that all. The most important place on the map this afternoon is Willesden. We have an electorate in Willesden of 127,122, yet we have only two Members in this House.

Here are some other constituencies: The Moseley Division of Birmingham has an electorate of 101,169; Romford, 167,939 electors, or 3,247 more electors than the whole of the universities and with one Member as against the universities' 12. There is no sense or equity or justice under these conditions even if the principle of university representation be conceded. Then there are Dartford, with an electorate of 106,043; Harrow, 130,716; and Hendon, 164,802.
It may be argued that these conditions have grown up since1918, when the last redistribution took place, but none the less it is grossly unfair, and that in itself is logical and sufficient ground to persuade the House of the reasons for supporting my Motion. But let us get nearer to the actual facts. Let us come down to consider the votes that were given at the last Election by the university electorates. The votes cast in 1935 were: Oxford, with its two members, 19,044 votes, out of an electorate of 22,414; Cambridge, 17,972 votes cast with an electorate of 33,617. or just over 50 per cent.; London, 12,876 votes cast out of 17,817; Scotland, 27,125 votes out of a possible 52,981. Those are the General Election figures. It appears to me that even those who are entitled to cast votes in the University elections do not value those votes, or they feel that it would be an outrage upon their own consciences to take such an undue advantage. I believe there are conscientious people in the Universities. But let us consider the method of voting in this enlightened age. The university voter has to obtain his ballot paper through the post, and when marking it he attaches his signature to it.

Sir JOHN WITHERS: A right and proper thing to do.

Mr. VIANT: The hon. Member says it is a right and proper thing to do. Then where is the secret ballot?

Sir J. WITHERS: The paper is put into the ballot box and no one sees it afterwards.

Mr. VIANT: That is just the point. Certain persons are nominated to watch the progress of the election, and when the ballot papers are sent in they, in conjunction with others watching the interests of the candidates, see that the


ballot papers are checked by the register and see precisely how the votes are cast. Worse than that, quite a number of these people are members of the appointing bodies, and many of these University voters make application for certain posts, and their position is prejudiced by their political views.

Sir J. WITHERS: That is not true.

Mr. VIANT: You may endeavour to argue that not a word of this is true; you may endeavour to persuade me that no such influence is brought to bear; but no man of the world, no one who has been the subject of victimisation and no one with experience of elections will be persuaded that nothing in the nature of victimisation takes place. Apart from that, is it fair that the university voter should in any circumstances be deprived of enjoying the secret ballot? The secret ballot is treasured, or should be treasured, by each and all of us. I suggest that in common decency this House ought to take immediate steps to see that a proceeding of that kind ceases. There can be no freedom of conscience under conditions of that kind. It is a thing that should no longer be permitted. Surely no one is going to argue that when a voter has to sign a ballot paper the way in which he has voted is not known to those who check the registers. I should be surprised if sufficient evidence is not forthcoming in this Debate to convince the House that during the last General Election it was known to certain persons how electors had voted at the university elections simply because they had signed their ballot papers. Those who read the pages of "The Times" will be acquainted with the facts.
This subject was discussed in the House on 3rd February, 1931, when the Representation of the People (No. 2) Bill was under discussion. The then Prime Minister, now the Lord President of the Council, took part in that Debate, and I am going to trouble the House with a quotation from the pages of the OFFICIAL REPORT because the right hon. Gentleman's contribution to the Debate on that occasion will, I feel sure, be appreciated by hon. Members opposite. The right hon. Gentleman said:
At the present moment university representation is simply plural voting.…Our view is that, if there be any

special institution requiring representation here, it is certainly not the universities, because the universities pervade the whole atmosphere of this House, right and left of me, behind and in front of me. The univerties cannot help being represented here. There are here Members who have had the good or the ill fortune, I do not kn which, to be educated at Eton or at Harrow and to have gone up to some of the colleges at Oxford. They are not here as university men; I do not believe they ant to appear at university men. The great value of university education and the great honour we pay it, are due to the fact that the enlightenment from univertities has shone through every. class of society and every profession; and we have it here pervading our institutions. We do not want to give the vote to those who become graduates and have to pay, I think, I for it. We do not want to pay honour to a university by saying to it 'We are going to give you special representation in in the House of Commons." I say to the universities, 'You are represented in every party in this House; you are represented on every bench of this House." If not directly, at any rate there are men here who owe their culture to the spreading of enlightenment by universities. That is the best representation that they can have."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1931; cols. 1670–71; Vol. 247.]
To that statement we can take no exception. There is the strength of our case. There should be no need for this special representation. Neither should anyone who has enjoyed the advantages of a university education want the dual advantage of a university franchise and the franchise of the ordinary citizen. In the 1929–31 Parliament one out of every three Members had graduated from one or other of our universities. I would hazard a guess that the number is greater in the present House. If by good fortune any man or woman has had the advantage of a university education they should be capable and well equipped to hold their own with others in the ordinary run of life without asking for special advantages. A man or woman who is specially gifted should be able to obtain a place in this House at an ordinary election. The universities should not be used as incubators for would-be politicians who cannot withstand the climatic conditions of an ordinary election. Recent elections have caused quite a large number of people to feel that university representation is being used in a manner, to say the least, which is not democratic, and I say that advisedly when candidates can be overwhelmingly defeated in one constituency and returned for a university.

4.18 p.m.

Sir J. WITHERS: I must thank the hon. Member very sincerely for the absence of any personalities in his speech beyond saying that we were incubated, and so on. One has to remember two mottoes on an occasion of this kind which are formed upon one, namely, qui s' excuse s' accuse on the one side, and self-praise is no recommendation on the other. Those are the two limits that one has to put to a speech of this kind. I shall try to avoid any excusing of our existence, and I shall also avoid any praise of the institution itself.

Mr. TINKER: Will the hon. Gentleman explain those two terms?

Sir J. WITHERS: Qui s' excuse s' accuse means, he who excuses himself accuses himself. The second is that self-praise is no recommendation. What are the facts? In 1603 James I by charter gave two Members to Oxford and two to Cambridge. He did it, I understand, on the advice of Sir Edward Coke, one of the greatest constitutional lawyers we have ever had. Curiously enough, from that time forward not only has it not been done away with, but university representation has been gradually increased until in 1918, by a definite arrangement, I understand, a coalition Government increased it to 12 Members. There it has remained down to the present time. In 1931, as the hon. Member well remembers, because he was a Member of the House at the time, and his right hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) led the argument on this point, an attempt was made by the Labour Government to upset the university vote, and it was only beaten, after very considerable discussion, by four votes. I was never more surprised in my life than when I saw the Clerk hand the paper to the Opposition Whips. Now it is raised again on a Private Member's Motion.
This is not a general attack on plural voting. It is an attack on one particular form of plural voting. When the Labour Government brought in their Bill in 1931 they left unassailed the City qualification. I was very much impressed by the reason why they did it. As far as I can remember, the reason given was that it was a very ancient and picturesque institution—it was so nice to see the two Members for the City of London on the first day of the Session sitting on

the Government Bench with their top-hats on. That was the reason, as far as I could gather, why the City qualification was not attacked. [An HON. MEMBER: "From whom are you quoting?"] I am quoting from my memory of the facts. Of course, there was a great deal of talk about it but that is really what it came to. If plural voting is going to be allowed anywhere it ought to be for the universities, and not for offices in the City. Surely the Labour party, if it stands for anything, stands for the claims of education as opposed to the claims of property; so that the first thing to do, I should think, would be for the Labour party to attack plural voting, and particularly the City vote. In the exercise of this franchise you get the opinion of a great mass of people of extended education.
I should have thought the Labour party would very much appreciate that. Their choice is undoubtedly well-balanced. See how it has resulted. Take the present constitution of the university Members. There are six Conservatives, two Liberals, three Independents and one National Labour. I do not think you can complain that that is at all a hidebound suffrage. The last time that this subject was discussed one of the principal arguments against the university vote was that the Members returned were unsuited to represent the people of the country. I remember replying that, so far as the other Members were concerned, I knew that they were suitable and, as far as I was concerned, if I was unsuitable I was very sorry. I say it again. If that argument is used to-day, I accept the blame and apologise. My idea of a university Member is that he should naturally come into the House with a label of some kind—Liberal, Labour, Independent or Conservative—and I think he ought to have a certain amount of freedom from ordinary party considerations, and be able to form an independent opinion as and when he likes. That is generally what is done by university Members now. That is what I try to do, anyhow.
The Opposition, when they talk about representation of the universities being a class representation forget, when they read an old book published in 1908, that since the War there has been a very great change. Certainly I can speak for Cambridge, and I understand it is the same


at Oxford. When I went to Cambridge over 50 years ago the undergraduates mostly consisted of public school men of one particular class, but now it is vastly different. Half the undergraduates go to the university either with scholarships, or sizarships, or charitable aid in some form or other. The whole idea and the whole constitution and character of the undergraduate world has changed. It represents an entirely new world, and we Members for universities appreciate that very much. We are not representing one particular class of the community, and I am glad we are not. We are trying to represent a very much larger class. These undergraduates get their degrees and form our constituencies. I think this must have been realised by Members of the Opposition, because not so very long after the last Debate in 1931 Sir William Jowitt, who took a prominent part in it against the universities, went so far as to stand for the Combined Universities. I think something must have happened in his mind to change him. I would remind the House that the Prime Minister of the party who actually proposed the disfranchisement of the universities in 1931 is himself a university Member.

Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: We know that.

Sir J. WITHERS: I am glad that the hon. Member appreciates it.

Mr. GRIFFITHS: I did not say that.

Sir J. WITHERS: I do not say that the hon. Member appreciates it in that sense, but that he appreciates it in the sense of understanding. Reading between the lines, I cannot help feeling that naturally this matter has been raised because of the recent by-election in the Scottish Universities, and I suggest that the Motion might be amended by adding that the constituency of Ross and Cromarty should also be disfranchised.

Mr. MacLAREN: That is not a bad amendment.

Sir J. WITHERS: I am sorry to have been frivolous about it, but this is really an important matter, and is raised on a private Member's Motion. I do not think that I can carry the case any further, and I hope that Members on all sides of the House will vote against the Motion.

4.33 p.m.

Mr. A. HENDERSON: In rising to support this Motion, I wish to make it perfectly clear that I am not doing so in any antagonistic spirit towards the universities of this country. I spent two of the happiest years of my life in the university which the hon. Member who has just spoken represents. I owe a good deal to, and I am very proud of the fact that I am a graduate of, that university. I would go even further and contend that the universities have contributed to the spiritual and intellectual wealth of this country to a greater extent perhaps than we have ever ostensibly recognised, and even to-day they are the leaders perhaps of the movement which goes to enrich our national culture, for which we owe them our thanks and our appreciation. This afternoon we are discussing a simple proposition: Is it right that there should be separate university representation?
I have tried to ascertain a single argument in favour of the proposition that the universities should be separately represented. First of all, we may ask ourselves, is there something special about university electors? Have they qualifications different from the qualifications of the rest of the community which entitle them to elect their own Members of Parliament? I remember that in my day a very large percentage of those who obtained degrees obtained what are called pass degrees. I doubt very much whether any Member of this House who is a graduate or who has been to a university would for one moment suggest that those persons have any very particular qualifications. We may ask: Have the university electors special interests? Is it that they are so primarily concerned with matters of education that we should have the benefit of the presence of their representatives in this House? Some of the greatest exponents and most expert Members of this House upon matters appertaining to education have never been to a university, and they do not seem to lack very much as a result of that disability. Is it that university electors send a particular brand of representative to this House of which we should be deprived if we abolished university representation? I am prepared to pay tribute to the Noble Lord the Senior Member for the University of Oxford (Lord H. Cecil). Every


Member on this side of the House would acknowledge that he is one of the greatest Commoners of the last 50 years.

Mr. McGOVERN: He is only here once a year.

Mr. HENDERSON: I say that sincerely, and I hope that the Noble Lord will accept it.

Mr. McGOVERN: If they all came as seldom, it would be all right.

Mr. HENDERSON: Not one of us is perfect. Then, of course, we have the Junior Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Alan Herbert). On many occasions when I have been travelling abroad, I have been told that the average Englishman lacks a sense of humour, but at any rate we have the advantage of the presence of one of the greatest humorists in this country, and an hon. Member who, I hope, will add to the debates of this House along the lines on which he is such an expert. Even the hon. Gentleman himself would not for one moment suggest that he would not be considered a fit and proper person to be a Member of this House in the event of his becoming a candidate in a non-university constituency, and I suggest that his chances of election for a typical Conservative seat would be very high, having regard to some of the competition he would have to face. So I doubt very much whether it can be argued that they send a special brand of representative.
Take the professions. It has been suggested that this system enables the professions of this country to be adequately and effectively represented. The head of the branch of the legal profession to which I have the honour to belong, the present Lord Chancellor, is not a university man. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), one of the greatest Statesmen—whatever one may think of some of his weaknesses—that we have had during the last 100 years, is not a university man. The right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council, who is now, I was going to say, the white-haired boy of the Conservative party, or at least he was until about six months ago, is not a university man. I could mention two dozen and more, men and women in all spheres of life who have

rendered great and distinguished services to the community, who have not had the advantages of a university education. Therefore, I respectfully submit to the House that on those three heads at any rate, no case at all can be made out for this separate method of election.
The basis of our case is as follows: Members on this side of the House stand for what has been described as an equalitarian democracy. I do not suggest for a moment that every person born into this world has the same amount of natural and native ability, but we are striving to bring about a system whereby, as far as possible, people should have equality of opportunity. But we do not suggest, and it would be foolish to do so, that everyone is born with the same degree of ability. But what is the system? Under the electoral laws of this country a vote represents one unit of electoral power. I am not very much interested, with great respect to the Noble Lord who represents Oxford University, as to whether the vote is a right, or whether it is a pubic function. I am rather disposed to agree with the Noble Lord, that, if we were among a gathering of lawyers, the general consensus of opinion would be that the vote is in essence a public function rather than a legal right, because a right, as far as lawyers are concerned, means something that you can enforce against another person. The vote is merely a unit of electoral power. We on this side of the House say that the ordinary citizen, man or woman, should be content to exercise one unit of electoral power, but, whether it be the business vote or the university vote, we have a system whereby a limited number of electors exercise two units of electoral power, and that we say is wrong.
While it may be true that, in the conference that was held in 1918, there was a consensus of opinion, which, at any rate, as far as one can ascertain, did not demonstrate any feeling against universities, may I remind the hon. Gentleman who represents the University of Cambridge, that the conference was composed of diverse elements all of whom were seeking something? They hammered out what was nothing more nor less than a compromise agreement, which was eventually embodied in the Representation of the People Act passed in that year. In any event, that was nearly 20


years ago. The Lord President of the Council wrote a book years ago expressing disagreement with university representation, and the suggestion is that he has changed his mind. I ask hon. Members on the opposite side of the House to realise that those who belong to my generation are not necessarily bound to accept everything that was done by the generations that have gone before. We seek to establish an electoral system whereby each man and woman over the age of 21 shall exercise one unit of electoral power, and no more. Hon. Members opposite who are afraid that the great question of education may suffer as a result of the deprivation of universities of the right to send 12 representatives to Parliament, need not be afraid of anything happening as far as we are concerned to damage or to weaken the educational system of this country. On the contrary, there is no organised party, either inside the House or outside, as anxious to strengthen and extend the system of education in this country as are the Members to be found sitting on this side of the House. We realise only too well, that one of the greatest obstacles with which we are faced to-day is that of ignorance. We want to see an intelligent and enlightened democracy. Therefore, if that is the fear of hon. Members opposite, I should like to reassure them upon that point.
Whatever may be the views of those who think that there is something to be said for plural voting, I think they will realise that we on this side have our point of view. We believe in a particular form of State, not the oligarchic State to which the Noble Lord referred some years ago. It is not a question of oligarchy, because an oligarchic State does not depend upon the consent of the people. The government of our people must rest on the consent of our people, and we wish to see that consent expressed in "One man, one woman, one unit of electoral power."

4.46 p.m.

Lord HUGH CECIL: This Debate has been interesting, particularly to those who recollect the last Debate which took place in 1930, because it is strikingly less animated by conviction and by expectation of success on the part of those who urge a change in our representative system. The heart has a good deal gone

out of the agitation against university representation in those five years. A good deal of the speech of the Mover of the Motion was occupied in reading from the past works of the Lord President of the Council. That was instructive and interesting. It is always rather fun to have a kind of rehearsal of the day of judgment, where somebody plays the part of the recording angel. We know that the Lord President of the Council has in some respects changed his opinions, and we also know that whether he has changed his opinions or not it makes no difference to the case for or against university representation. Perhaps he has not changed his opinions. If you have been a severe critic of the furniture of a room and think it in bad taste or inconvenient, it would not, surely, expose you to criticism if, suddenly feeling fatigued, you took a chair in the very room you had criticised.
I have been rather interested in trying to discover what was the underlying theory that lay behind the speeches of the hon. Member who moved the Motion and the hon. Member who has just spoken. I thank the hon. Member for Kingswinford (Mr. A. Henderson) for his very courteous and indeed very extravagant reference to myself. Nothing which either of those hon. Members said showed clearly what their theory of representation is, or what their theory of the value of education is. If education makes everyone reactionary and darkens the mind and makes a person not conspicuously fitted either to vote for or to sit in this House, I cannot see why we spend so much public money in, as it were, enticing the guileless youth of the country down the path of political incompetence. Hon. Members constantly speak of the advantage of university education. What is the advantage? If university voters are so incompetent, it would appear to be not an advantage but a disadvantage. They are worse off, so far as one can judge from the arguments of hon. Members. Therefore I think there is a certain inconsistency in that attitude. If education is really a valuable thing and increases efficiency, it is quite right to spend money in promoting it, and it is quite right to put a certain degree of confidence in those who have received it.
As to the theory of representation, the hon. Member for Kingswinford spoke of


electoral power, as if there was in his mind a conception of a kind of prodigious machine, full of cogs and pistons, which labours to develop power until the twenty million electors have elected 615 Members of this House, who all the time are acting under the impulse of this power. That may be a very pleasant dream, but it is only a dream and it bears no correspondence to reality at all. The voter does not, really govern the country. He does not really determine any political question and certainly he does not determine it in equal measure with other people.

An HON. MEMBER: He will when you educate him.

Lord H. CECIL: No, I think it is more mechanical than a question of education. Consider the position of a, person who is a, convinced member of the Labour party but lives in Hertfordshire. How much control does he exercise over the Government of the country? He is always in a minority. He has the fun of going to the poll and making a mark on a paper every three or four years. That is all he has. The country will be governed in exactly the same way, despite his periodical marking of the paper, until the sad day comes and he passes beyond the confines of this world. Nothing is changed. He has exercised no power and when he goes no power is lost. It would be just the same if I lived in the county of Glamorgan, in one of the mining districts. I should have no electoral power whatever. I should start no chain of cogs and pistons which would ultimately operate in sending a Member to this House.
The function of the voter is only to choose between the candidates whom various active-minded people submit for his choice. Let me relate an experience of my own. In the General Election of 1906, when there were a very large number of political issues, one of the most prominent issues was between Free Trade and Tariff Reform. I was a Free Trader and a Unionist. When I went to record my vote in the city of Oxford, where I have chambers, I read the addresses of the two candidates who were offering themselves for election, and I found that I thoroughly disagreed with both of them. The extent of my electoral power was not to govern the country but to

choose which of my opinions was subordinated to the other one. I had no real share in the government of the country, but I had a perfectly real share in choosing the person who was to sit in the House of Commons. That illustrates the sound and unsound view of representation. If you think of representation as the delegated power of exercising political government, then our system is quite unreal. There is no effective control by the voters over the determination of political issues in Parliament, but if you think of the voters as choosing typical Commoners who are to speak in the name of the whole Commons of the realm, then they do fulfil a useful function. The whole House of Commons represents in a real sense the whole commonalty of the realm.
Nothing could be more unsound than to make power dependent on residence and dependent on the machinery of the choice of candidates. The determination of any particular electoral issue on the theory of mandates, which we sometimes have brought up in debate, is utterly indefensible. You cannot say that any particular Member is elected with a mandate to do something. Sometimes it happens that the most important questions arise long after the election, and he has therefore no mandate necessary from the electorate to decide them. Take the Great War. That was unforeseen at the election which took place before it. The Government which, having the confidence of the House of Commons, came into existence as a result of that election, had no thought of a, war in the near future, yet they had to decide what should be done in that great crisis, with the concurrence of the House of Commons. If you conceive the picture of a machine working through the electorate and through the decisions by the Cabinet the whole thing becomes absurd and unreal, but if you think of Members of this House as typical Commoners speaking in the name of the Commons of the realm then the system is a reality. We can then see the truth of it.
We had a striking exhibition recently of public opinion in regard to the proposed Hoare-Laval peace terms, when the whole public opinion of the country moved, and this House with it. That is true representation. The House of Commons is representative of the whole of the people. It is the Commons of the


realm by representation, and being the mirror of the public mind it reflects the public mind and makes it effective. That is the true view and it does not really matter whether one man has a larger or a smaller share, in the hon. Member's phrase, of electoral power. On this theory, disproportion of the constituencies matters little. It has no practical importance.
The real thing is that the House of Commons is a. body representing the community. It is really the mind of the Commonalty of the realm which is spoken by this House, and from that point of view there is a good deal to be said for university representation. If we were to change our representative system at all it would be better to pursue the model of university representation and divide our constituencies not according to geography but according to vocation. There is much to be said for the view that different professions, different classes of labour and so on, should each send their representatives to Parliament. In that way you would much more nearly reproduce the whole effect of the life of the community and make the House of Commons a microcosm of the whole Commons of the realm. But such a change would be too drastic to consider at the present time.
Are we, therefore, not wise to keep this one example by which these professional classes are able to send to Parliament Members who will fulfil the purpose of representation as representing the whole Commons of the Realm? Do not let us make the mistake of thinking that we represent particular constituencies. As Burke said: "I am a Member of Parliament; I am not a Member of Bristol." We are Members of the Commons House of Parliament, which represents the whole commonalty. In that aspect is it not desirable to have, as Members of this House, persons, some with academic distinctions and others possessing other distinctions, well known to the professional classes of this country and trusted by that class? Is it not worth while to have them here, not representing the whole of the Commons but contributing their share to the functions of the Commons House of Parliament?
I am glad that the Scottish Universities have lately chosen the Lord President of the Council. I think it is one of the valuable things of such representation that it can choose an eminent man who

by the accident of elections in other constituencies has not a seat in this House. It is perfectly in accord with the traditions of university representation that distinguished statesmen not being Members of this House can be chosen by the universities, and thus work for the common good. If hon. Members would rise above partisan sentiment they would not suggest that it is desirable for any eminent man to be permanently excluded from this House—I do not speak of his own interests but in the interests of the Commons of the Realm. Therefore, I am glad of that election. I think it belongs to a good tradition. It is not by making our system uniform, always putting the same sort of burden on the representative, always turning out the same type of representatives, making it more and more difficult for people of weak health and advanced years to bear the strain of sitting in Parliament—it is not in that way that we shall add to the efficiency of the House of Commons. Dismiss from your minds that the vote is a right. Think of it as a public function—the function of choosing those who are to represent the whole Commons of the Realm and all the difficulties which hon. Members feel about university representation will dissolve and pass away.
If these particular considerations relating to university representation have some weight has not also the more general consideration, that the present time is singularly inopportune for tinkering with the great inheritance which has come down to us. Parliamentary government succeeds here; it can hardly be said to be successful in any other country. It has been cast aside in some great countries and in other countries it works uneasily and not with the sort of acceptance which we should desire here. In the United States a different form of democratic government, one which does not inspire our envy at any rate, has been set up. Is it not better then to rejoice that we are so fortunate as we are, that we have a Parliamentary system which safeguards liberty and forwards progress, and which makes many things from which other countries suffer quite out of the question. It is one of the merits of our representative system that while we differ about many things we agree about many other things incomparably more important than those about which we


differ. Any real attack on personal liberty, any really harsh confiscation of private property, any tyranny to the individual, is out of the question, I think, in the judgment of any political party. That is because we represent the mind of the whole people.
The Commons of the realm are here by representation. Do not let us spoil by meddlesome amendments what is working so well. Let us retain with pride and thankfulness that which has given us so much liberty and so much security, and be thankful that we cling as it were to a stable rock in the midst of a turbulent world and that while we look out on oppression and cruelty and servitude we are safe, for ours is the citadel of liberty, the home of progress.

5.4 p.m.

Mr. MAXTON: I cannot hope to follow the Noble Lord into the clarified atmosphere into which he ascended. It was a good speech. I can imagine it having been delivered with equal force and to a large extent unchanged in form and when the first proposals were brought before this House to extend the franchise to ordinary working men. The Noble Lord sees Parliament in a different light from that in which I see it. The story of this House, as I see it, is a long continuous struggle by the majority of the people for some say, however, indirect, in decisions which affect their own destiny, and, secondly, having got that say, to use their power to redress the social grievances under which they labour. As I see the political history of the last 100 years it is the attempt of the majority of the people living in poverty, and at that time denied a say in the government of the country, gradually forcing their way into this representative Assembly and then, having got here, using their power as representatives in this Assembly to extract some measure of social and economic freedom for themselves.
I cannot see that in that struggle the common people have received the assistance from enlightened university representatives which in my younger days I imagined they would be only too glad to give. Then I saw education as the great liberator, and I gather from the interruption behind me that the hon. Member thinks still that educational institutions are the great liberators of the people.

I regret to have to say that in this House I have not seen university representatives taking the lead either for freedom or social justice, or standing boldly on behalf of the bottom dog. Ii, the years I have been in this House you could always count, on every proposal to improve social conditions, on 10 out of 12 university votes being cast for the meaner rather than for the more generous proposal. Quite frankly I dismiss the whole theory of and justification for university repreresentation as a theoretical consideration. I am not concerned very seriously with it. I am doing my best to abolish university representation in this House because I know from experience, as other hon. Members know, that it has always been a majority bloc flung on to the reactionary side.

Lord H. CECIL: I supported the conscientious objectors during the War.

Mr. MAXTON: There have been exceptional cases, I admit, where university Members have broken out in surprising places, and I am hoping great things in the direction of freedom from the hon. Member who has most recently come into the House—though his particular friends of freedom are not those for which I have any special need. I say quite definitely that, generally speaking, university representation here, from the point of view of the social struggle of the poor, has been a reactionary representation; in other words, anti-working class representation, and, therefore, I am going to do my best to get rid of people who constantly do their best to keep back the progress of those things which I want to see progress. That is a good, adequate and perhaps pragmatic reason for opposing university representation. I have to thank the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir J Withers) for allowing me to know the origins of this business. I have always meant to dig up and find out just how this started and who the madman was who did start it. I am grateful to the hon. Member for saving me a somewhat painful research. I gather that it was James I, who was appalled at the general ignorance of the English people when he arrived here. I can imagine him, as he surveyed his new Kingdom, saying, "Are there no intelligent people here at all? There is a university at Oxford and at Cambridge and, presumably, they have some sort of standard of intelligence."

Mr. BELLENGER: Is it in order for the hon. Member to introduce this national spirit into our discussion?

Mr. MAXTON: The real reason, I understand, for this discussion is the Scottish universities. That was 300 years ago, and I am quite prepared to believe that there was a considerable cultural gap between a university man and a man who had not been to a university. I do not know; but, at any rate, at that time there was a thing called "Benefit of Clergy," which entitled a university man to commit murder and all sorts of other crimes and get away with it soft.

Lord H. CECIL: He had to read a verse of the Psalms.

Mr. MAXTON: Yes, instead of being hanged; a reasonable option. If he was able to pass the test he escaped hanging. No doubt there was a cultural gulf, an intellectual difference, between a man who had been to a university and a man who had not, 300 years ago. Is there a cultural gulf now? Is there any gulf of any moment between a young fellow who has attended a good secondary school in an industrial town until 17 years of age and his chum who has spent three years at a university and got a degree? I do not know very closely the ways in which men enter different professions, but in the case of the chartered accountants I understand that a large proportion of the entrants do not take a university degree, although they may take a university course. The same applies to a marked proportion of those who engage in the legal profession, the solicitors branch and the barristers branch. In neither of these is the possession of a university degree an essential qualification for practice, and in the Army, I understand, that the officer class have a long and extended school course and then what is equivalent to a university course in a special military college. The same thing applies also to the Navy, and to other walks of life, where education of one kind or another up to the age of 21 or 22, which is the normal age of taking a university degree, is given. They have no special vote on educational grounds, whereas those who have gone to the university and taken a degree have this extra vote given them.
I am not prepared to prophesy what will be the future development of the

universities, but my own idea is that in future far more people will go to universities to obtain a special brand of knowledge—special training and experience in a particular subject—and will not worry about the taking of a degree. They will go to a particular school or college for specialised education in specialised branches of knowledge, and it will be considered that the general cultural side of education, which is now supposed to be represented by a degree, will have been adequately met by the secondary or grammar school education. I think that to-day it is preposterous and impertinent for a university man to come forward before the remainder of the citizens of this country and demand extra electoral power and extra Parliamentary representation on the grounds that he stands for something superior and particular.
We are in the fortunate position that in my small party of four, two of us—50 per cent., a very high percentage—have academic qualifications. The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) and I have them. Two Members of the party are proletarians. I wish I could make the two proletarians see that with such a deep intellectual gulf separating us they should unquestioningly follow my leadership on the grounds of my superior intellectuality. That would make life infinitely easier and more pleasant, but I do not think it would make the work of the party in this House the efficient thing that it undoubtedly is.
If the claim is made that the universities have a special influence in the community that requires and deserves to be specially represented here, I would ask for the reasons. There are in the community other great aggregations of much more importance. Why should the Stock Exchange not be given special representation? [An HON. MEMBER: "It has now."] We do not provide specially for it—it just manages to get here. [An Hon. MEMBER: "Why not the football pools?" Yes, why not the football pools? Why not the elementary schools of the country, which represent a far bigger interest than the universities? Why not engineering, shipbuilding and mines? There are hundreds of interests in this country which include as many individuals within their scope and which are as essential a part of the national life as the universities.
I have good friends and amiable colleagues among the university representatives in this House, but I am not prepared to provide for them any better facilities for coming here than are provided for myself. I should be sorry to lose them if university representation was abolished, but there are 600 other constituencies to which they can go, with their superior culture, if any, with their special appeal, if any, with their power to sway the minds of the masses, and with their superior intellectual eminence. They can go to any one of these constituencies and have the same political machine behind them, for the most obvious thing about the Scottish University elections was that it was not a university election. It was not a university thinking in the interests of the university or concerning itself about the interests of advanced education in this country that returned the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council; it was the Conservative party implementing what it regarded as an honourable bargain entered into by it on a basis of give-and-take. The Conservative party went to the graduates of the Scottish Universities and made them do violence to their own conscience and to their own intellectual beliefs.

Mr. BAXTER: Does the hon. Member suggest that Scottish graduates have so little character that they answered to the crack of the whip of the party machine?

Mr. MAXTON: One of the extraordinary things about Scottish graduates is that in that respect they are exactly the same as English graduates. Just as in this House the hon. Member, with all his character and with all his capacities, will 99 times out of 100 obey the crack of a whip, so the Conservatives of the Scottish Universities obeyed the crack of the whips of the Conservative party. Let hon. Members read the correspondence in the newspapers and they will see how men were writhing in agony. Perhaps the best argument against the university vote is that there is not a single hon. Member on the opposite side of the House who believes that a university man has a conscience or political intelligence that is anything more than a subject for laughter. My own personal friends—conscientious Conservatives, if hon. Members opposite

understand the term, and not fellows who laugh at the idea of a conscientious Conservative—were torn between two things, either to give expression to their own political and intellectual conscience or to obey the tremendous pressure of a party machine. Scotland at least knows that the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council was not returned because he was regarded as being particularly capable of looking after academic interests; he was returned by the Scottish Universities because the Conservative machine told the Universities to return him.

Mr. BAXTER: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member again. Is it not possible that the graduates of the Scottish Universities felt that the defeat of the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council was a national stigma and that they returned him to this House in recognition of his great services to the nation and in order to wipe out what many of us on this side regard as an electoral blunder and misfortune?

Mr. MAXTON: That may appear to be quite an attractive and plausible reason to some hon. Members. I could find a hundred and one very plausible reasons, but I am giving the reason which the majority of the Scottish University men know to be the true one and which the majority of the Members of this House know to be the true one. It may have been perfectly legitimate from the point of view of the exigencies of government, it may have been perfectly sound and proper for the Government machine to wish to maintain its standing in the country and to present the appearance of being an all-party united front, it may have been that the Prime Minister felt his own personal honour to be involved—but I say that in doing that the Conservative party demonstrated more clearly than ever that the universities are centres from which political reaction flows, and centres from which we should try to take away representation as an enemy camp which has to be rooted out before working-class progress can be made.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. J. G. KERR: One of the most charming experiences that a new Member has in this House is to learn of the generous indulgence which is granted to one who makes his first speech. I fully


anticipate that indulgence, but I rather anticipate that it will be given to me in a double degree, for I am one of those unhappy people whose early execution is asked for by this Motion. I confess that I have not been much moved, although I was greatly interested, by some of the arguments that have been put forward, some of them being of antiquarian interest and others theoretical. My special interest is neither in looking back into the past history of university representation nor in looking forward to its future. What interests me rather is whether or not this House feels that on the whole it gets from university representation something that is worth having.
It seems to me that university representation probably appeals to many Members of this House for two different reasons. In the first place, it appeals to them from the point of view of education in general. There is nobody who does not realise the tremendous part played by education in present-day history. There is no one here who has not during these last few weeks learned that many of the most admirable speeches in this House are delivered by the representatives of education, some of them by Members who have been teachers and others by Members who have been connected with administrative bodies. Many of those admirable speeches have been delivered by real experts in school education. But we also know that the universities, far from being reactionary, are really centres of progress in many respects. I feel sure that many Members of the House believe that it is only right that the universities should be represented, and that that representation should not be confined merely to those who happen to have spent three or four years in taking a university degree, and who, of course, are in no way expressly qualified to represent the university point of view, any more than are the great majority who spend years in the schools competent to express the point of view of education as regards the schools.
Apart from that general argument, there is a more special one which will, I think, appeal to many, and it is that university representation affords a means of bringing into the House recruits of a kind which would not otherwise be available. During recent days I have seen opposite me the representatives of a great

party, a party great in quality although unhappily few in number. I have heard the oratorical artistry of Bridgeton. I have listened to the mellifluous accents of Camlachie. I have heard the heartfelt expostulations of Gorbals. I have the resounding periods of Shettleston. As I listened to them I could not help feeling how absurd it would be for a retiring scholar, emerging from the cloisters of Gilmore Hill, to have any hope of getting the suffrages of the electors in an ordinary constituency. It is only by this easier method that these untutored men from the universities have any chance whatever of gaining entrance to this House.
I rather think there are many in this House who feel that these people, ineffective though they may be in many of the great electoral arts, ineffective though they may, perhaps, prove in this Chamber, may yet have their useful function in more obscure although not unimportant departments. Take the case of science, which appeals to me particularly. We all know how our present-day civilisation is infiltrated by science and the enormous power of science in the community. I think there are some in this House who believe that it is worth while to have representatives of general science in Parliament. I can imagine that some of the more cynical Members of the House might regard the representation of academic science as a not unimportant factor, in immunising the community against till effects from science itself. It is, unhappily, the case that science, like all other departments of progress, tends, as it moves on, to become more and more specialised, and it is unhappily also the case that to be a good specialist one must concentrate on a special aspect of a subject, thereby probably losing a sense of proportion. The scientific specialist, like the specialist in any other department, is convinced that his own speciality is the most important of all and that attitude, although it brings progress, also involves danger. As I say, I rather think that many Members of the House feel that, even as a safeguard against possible ills arising from science, the representatives of academic science are not ineffective. I venture to hope that there are many Members in this House who, instead of agreeing with the hon. Member opposite, that university representation ought to be brought to an end, will feel rather that if university representation has not


earned their admiration it is at all events worthy of a reprieve.

5.33 p.m.

Mr. THURTLE: I take this opportunity of congratulating the hon. Member for the Scottish Universities (Mr. Graham Kerr) on a very reasoned and thoughtful speech. I am sure we shall all be glad to hear him on many future occasions, but he will forgive me if I find myself unable to agree with some of his arguments. He drew a touching picture of the academic man of culture, who would be utterly at sea if he had to appeal to mass meetings on Clydeside or in any other great industrial centre. He asked us to take pity on such a man, who would be a desirable acquisition to this House, and to provide him with some means of getting here. I suggest to the hon. Member that there are already splendid avenues to this House for such representatives. The Noble Lord who now represents the University of Oxford (Lord H. Cecil) once found a refuge in the City of London. There are other harbours to be found in Chelsea, in South Kensington, in Hillhead, in Bournemouth and places like that, where a candidate with the hall-mark of respectability, such as a university professor, will certainly receive the suffrages of the electorate.
I wish to counter one or two of the special pleading arguments used by the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University. He gave us, as he always does, a brilliant dialectical speech but it contained little argument in favour of university representation. It was an indictment of democracy itself. He pointed out the difficulties and anomalies of democracy. I think we are all familiar with those, but we are concerned to-day not with the general defects of democracy but with the particular defects of university representation. We are not to be drawn off into a general discussion on democracy when we are considering that particular evil. He threw doubt on the whole theory of democratic government by suggesting that the electorate did not control legislation. I would recall the vote taken on this issue in 1931 when we were considering legislation to abolish university representation. That issue was decided by a majority of four and in the majority vote on that occasion, against the proposals to abolish

university representation were these 12 university votes. There is a clear illustration, a case in which the plural vote of the university materially affected legislation in this House. Our objection to university representation, however, is on broader grounds. Anyone who has been connected with the democratic party knows how heavily the scales are weighted against the poor.

Mr. H. G. WILLIAMS: Will the hon. Gentleman inform us which party he means when he refers to "the democratic party?"

Mr. THURTLE: I speak for the party of which I am a member, the democratic party. I say that, even now, in other respects, the scales are weighted tremendously against the poor. There is the wealth of our opponents, all the enormous social influence, the mass of the newspapers, motor cars and all those things which democracy, even now, has to contend with in trying to get its aspirations represented in this House. University representation is one other little weight in the scales. There could be no better description of the university constituencies than that they are pocket boroughs of reaction. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If you consider the record of the university representatives over a long period you will find that they have been, almost without exception, champions of the reactionary standpoint. It is not surprising that that should be so. It has been suggested that in recent years there has been a change in the character of the university electors. The hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir J Withers) almost suggested that large numbers of them might be said to represent the working-class or the petty bourgeoisie. I do not know whether I am to accept as an authority the hon. Member for Cambridge University, or the Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University, who went out of his way to tell us that the university representatives were really the representatives of the professional class.

Sir J. WITHERS: As an instance of the truth of what I said, may I tell the hon. Member that a considerable number of young men, who are at present undergraduates in Cambridge, are the children of parents who are actually on unemployment pay.

Mr. THURTLE: They must be rare cases. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] They are sufficiently abnormal not to be taken seriously into account. As to the suggestion that there has been a change in the character of the university electorate I would put this point. It may be that young men going to the university towns, and coming into contact with university associations, have generous aspirations and enthusiasms, and come into contact for the first time with the realities of life and learn something of the hardships of the working people. Their imaginations are attracted and many of them become identified with more or less progressive movements. There have been large memberships in university labour clubs and even more advanced clubs. But it would be wrong to regard that change as typical of the university electorate.
Human nature being what it is, responds to its environment and when those earnest young men leave the universities and go back to their natural social surroundings, in the great agricultural estate or among the professional classes, or in similar circles, they tend to lose the advanced political views held by them earlier and to adopt once again the attitude and outlook of the typical Conservative. The present Minister of Agriculture was, I believe, in his university days an ardent Fabian. He has gone back to his true spiritual home. There is another Member of the Government who, as a young university man, fired by the feelings I have described, went to Toynbee Hall and spent, I think, a brief year there. He soon went back to his spiritual home and is now a Member of the National Government. We are not going to attach any importance to the suggestion that the electorate of the universities has seriously changed, but I put this question to hon. Members. Is it not true that the universities, as such, represent an outlook which is behind the times? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."]
The Noble Lord the Member for Oxford University will realise that his university is known as the home of lost causes. It is so known not because of any great pioneering spirit that it has shown, or because it has championed something in the teeth of the opposition of the age, something which it believes to be true. No, it has been so called because it champions causes which the country as a

whole regards as antiquated. It is true to say—the reverse of what is said about Lancashire—that what Oxford thinks today the rest of the country thought 50 years ago. There was a short time ago when my belief that Oxford was the home of reaction weakened to some extent, and that was when, to my astonishment and surprise, I found that the new junior Member (Mr. Alan Herbert) had been elected. I thought that was a sign of grace on the part of Oxford University that it should elect a young libertarian champion like that hon. Gentleman, but I remembered that even he could not avoid subscribing general support to this reactionary National Government.
If ever there was a case for university representation in the old days, that case becomes more and more remote, because what is the characteristic change which has taken place in this House in the last 30 or 40 years? It is that instead of being concerned with purely political or academic questions, it is concerned more and more with social and economic problems and with human relationships, and if there is one kind of person less fitted than another to deal with these social, economic and human problems, it is the academic person who normally represents the universities of this country. I will conclude by saying that in my judgment there is no justification whatever for allowing this anomaly of university representation to continue. It was conceived in snobbery, on a class basis. [An HON. MEMBER: "In 1600?"] Even in 1600 I have no doubt there were very marked class distinctions. It has been nurtured, and it is nurtured to-day, by sheer self-interest, and it is time it was swept away.

5.48 p.m.

Sir ERNEST GRAHAM-LITTLE: The "Times" of yesterday suggested that the reason why this Motion was being brought forward was to have some fun at the expense of the Lord President of the Council. That fun is very materially diminished by the absence of the right hon. Gentleman, but if the attack is really a serious attack, and I suppose we must assume that that is the case, surely there are some quite sound arguments to put before the House for the retention of the university franchise. I would say that the charter for the university franchise is not the Act of 1603,


but the great Franchise Act of 1918, which was the outcome of a very serious and important conference of the then existing parties known as the Speaker's Conference. In that conference, as has been mentioned, an agreement was reached as a result of which the university representation, which at that time was nine Members, was increased to 12. I would point out that the other parts of that agreement have been kept, and what is the justification for nullifying this part of the agreement which concerns the university franchise?
It has been obvious, both this afternoon and more particularly in the Debate in 1931, that there are two views as to what the purpose and the meaning of the vote should be. We have the view, so eloquently expressed both in 1931 and to-day by the senior Member for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), that the vote is a function to be exercised with deliberate care, intelligence, and knowledge to further the good government of the country, and that a vote obtained in that way will send to the House of Commons a representative Assembly which will reproduce the general complexion of citizenship throughout the country. In that Assembly, as the Noble Lord pointed out, the university representatives play a very definite part.
The opposite view, very fully and very ably expounded in 1931 by the then Home Secretary, now the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes), is the view that the vote is a means of remedying social inequalities and should be used in that way, and that the less equipped, the poorer the individual may be, the greater should be his power of exercising that privilege of voting called this afternoon "the unit of electoral power." In the Debate in 1931 one Member of the Labour party expressed that view very definitely. It was a Lady Member not now in the House, but her view was that the voting power should be in proportion to the need of the person recording the vote, and she said quite distinctly that she would give 10 or 20 votes to every member of the unemployed. That argument surely is capable of being put to quite absurd extremes. The most afflicted, the most wretched members of our community, I would describe as the mental defectives, and unfortunately, they are a largely increasing quantity. Are they to have all

the votes because they are the people who are most unable to protect themselves? That is where that argument, I think, leads.
I would like to make some mention of the changes which have taken place at the universities in respect to their democratic complexion and these are not expressions of opinion, but are founded upon figures. There was a very interesting report made in 1931 on the constitution of the undergraduate body at various universities. The undergraduate body in some of the Northern universities was found to contain 80 per cent. of students coming from working-class houses, and the percentage is about as high as that in many of the modern universities. At Oxford and Cambridge, which may be regarded as being the homes of privilege—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear !"] Wait until I have finished. In those universities the same change is taking place. There are more students at those universities coming from poor homes than from rich homes, and that ratio is increasing daily, so that it is quite untrue of the universities to regard them as the playgrounds of the rich.
The university representatives, it has been said—and, I suppose, quite fairly—have been less distinguished persons in the present than in past times. We had a history behind us 30 or 40 years ago of very great figures representing the universities. That is possibly to be explained, not as the fault of the universities, but by changed conditions. It is very difficult for a. man who is immersed in science or one who has received recognition and success in his own profession to come to the House of Commons, which means a very considerable sacrifice of time, of money, and of health. But that sacrifice is still made, and I contend that as long as that obtains, that representation is worth preserving. It is not true that the party machine is so predominant in university elections, and I can perhaps give my own experience in that regard. I have fought all the party machines in four elections, and I have beaten them all. I have never relied myself upon the party machine, and it is obvious that party ties do not have that predominating power which is present in the ordinary elections. It is quite common for a university elector to say, "I am going to vote for


my party in my residential qualification, but for my university qualification I shall use my own judgment, and I shall vote for that person who I think will advance the university best in Parliament."
Again, it has been said, and I think truly, that university representation does provide a means of bringing to the House some few persons who would not come otherwise. The expense of fighting a general election in an ordinary constituency is not, and cannot be, sustained by most university men. They are not a rich community as a rule, and it is gratifying to note that the pecuniary resources of a candidate are not considered in making a selection. How often is that the case with ordinary constituencies, where it is very common to find that a man is selected because he can spend money in his constituency? Is this the time to make this change? What have been the reasons adduced to-day for making such a change? I cannot see any very obvious argument that has been put forward so far. I do not think myself that this is a very serious attack, but I hope it will not succeed.

5.59 p.m.

Mr. DINGLE FOOT: I hesitate to rush in among so many distinguished academic representatives, but I think a word should be said on behalf of the party which has always been particularly associated with Parliamentary reform. I rise to say that my friends and myself support the Motion that is on the Paper, but that does not mean that we associate ourselves necessarily with all the observations which have fallen from hon. Members above the Gangway. Particularly I do not associate myself, if I may say so, with the observations that fell from the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle), who proceeded to use every stale gibe he could think of against the University of Oxford. He said it was the home of lost causes—a phrase we have often heard before; and that it was 50 years behind other parts of the country. In these days, I think, Oxford is becoming known, not as the home of lost causes, but as the university where most of the Labour leaders send their sons if they can. Only recently a degree was conferred upon the son of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Greenwood), who was saying "Hear, hear" to the phrase "home of privilege" a few minutes ago;

and also upon the son of the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps).
The question we have to discuss to-night, however, is not the universities, but the university franchise, and the issue before the House is a very simple one: We have here a certain class of voters; are they to be permitted to have this additional representation? That is the issue which the House has to decide. Are they entitled to this particular form of fancy franchise? This is the class which already enjoys by far the greatest degree of political influence. It has been pointed out that a great number of Members of this House, whatever their political complexions may be, are always graduates of one or other of the universities, but the influence does not stop short at this House. The influence of the universities is very considerable in the ordinary constituencies throughout the land. I ask hon. Members to think of any village or small town with which they happen to be acquainted, and to consider who are the graduates in such a district. The graduates, who are the people who enjoy this additional franchise, are generally people of considerable influence in the neighbourhood in which they live. It will be generally found that the local doctor or the lawyer or the parson possess a university degree and is therefore a university vote. These are the very people, however, who are able to sway support from one party to another, that is to say, they are the very people who have a great political influence at the present time, and that fact makes it all the more unjustified that they should have this additional franchise bestowed upon them.
Those who have spoken in the Debate on the other side have tried to justify their attitude on the ground that voters in the universities have some particular quality. Can it really be said—I am not referring to the present representation—that the university voters have shown in the past such extraordinary political perspicacity that they should be entitled to a vote more than anyone else? The franchise can only be justified if the electors of the universities have in fact sent distinguished men who would not get here by any other means. We have had a speech from the Noble Lord the senior Member for Oxford University


(Lord Hugh Cecil), of which I happen to be one of the voters, and we shall all agree that in sending the Noble Lord to this House the University of Oxford has done itself honour. I am not sure, however, that it has always exercised the same degree of care in the choice of its other representatives. I am not making charges against the junior Member for Oxford University (Mr. Alan Herbert). While I do not want to introduce any personalities into the Debate, I would say that if any one in any part of the House were asked who was the most distinguished candidate, apart from the Noble Lord, offering himself for election for the University of Oxford during the last 10 or 15 years, there must be only one reply—Professor Gilbert Murray, who was a candidate on one or two occasions. There is not a Member in any part of the House who would not have been glad to see Professor Murray a Member of the House, and who would not have thought that this Assembly was enriched by his presence. Why was he not sent here? Not because he was not a distinguished man or was a man who ought not to have been in the House, but simply because he did not belong to the Conservative party and was not prepared to endorse its views.
It is a fact that a large number—I do not say necessarily the majority—of the university electors have shown themselves some of the most hide-bound partisan voters in the country. Until 1918, when there was introduced in the universities a system of proportional representation, I think I am right in saying that no one but a Conservative was ever sent to the House as a university Member. If one wants to see the kind of vote which is given by a great number of people to whom we entrust this additional franchise, it is not necessary to look further than the events of a few years ago. I would remind the House of what took place in the University of Oxford at the Chancellor's election of 1925 or 1926, when the first candidate to be nominated was Lord Oxford. I do not believe that any Member of the House will differ from me when I say that he was, in the words used by the late Lord Birkenhead, the most distinguished living Oxonian, and that there was no one better fitted for that post. Another candidate was put in the field at the last moment

simply in order to keep Lord Oxford out, and a great many of the more backward of the country clergy on the day of the election streamed in from places hundreds of miles around for the sole purpose of defeating Lord Oxford, not because they had anything against him personally, but simply because he was not a member of the Conservative party.
I think that a great number of those who are graduates, as I am, of the University of Oxford think that that was a lamentable decision which brought no credit upon the university. Although the electorate for choosing the Chancellor of the University is smaller, and although it is not the same register as the electorate for Members of Parliament, nevertheless, the people who were responsible for that decision are a considerable body of those to whom we entrust this additional franchise. Did they show at that time that particular impartiality, that appreciation of individual worth, apart from partisan considerations, which we are told to look for in the university electors?
The argument was put forward by the Noble Lord that the recent return to the House by the Scottish Universities of the Lord President of the Council was something to the credit of the Scottish Universities. I agree that it was a good thing that a man of the distinction of the Lord President should be able to find his way back into the House. The Noble Lord said that highly distinguished men should not be permanently excluded. I agree, and if the university constituencies acted in that way, as a means by which we could get back distinguished men who, by some electoral accident, happened to be out, university representation would be amply justified. Would the Lord President of the Council, however, for all his distinguished record and for all his services to the State on one side or the other, have been returned by the electors of the Scottish Universities if he had not been a supporter of the present Government? I referred just now to Lord Oxford, and I think that one of the greatest losses that this House has ever sustained was the defeat of Mr. Asquith, as he was then, at Paisley in 1924.

Mr. MacLAREN: By your present leader.

Mr. FOOT: I understood he was defeated by a Member of the party to which the hon. Gentleman belongs. I think that everybody agreed that that was a loss to Parliament. Everybody knows that it would not have been possible for Lord Oxford to go to one of the ancient universities or to the Scottish Universities and get back to the House by that means. I think it is also a matter of agreement that in 1931 a great many people, while they rejoiced at the defeat of the Socialist party, regretted that so many of the party's ablest leaders should have been for the time excluded from the House. It was a great loss to the House that the late Mr. Arthur Henderson should have been prevented for a year or two from taking part in our deliberations. There would not have been the slightest chance, however, of his being returned for any university constituency. When the argument is put forward that this method enables us sometimes to bring back distinguished men whom we would like to see, let us remember that it cuts only one way and in favour of only one side.
Some interesting observations fell from the Noble Lord on the electoral system. He rather approved, I think, of the principle of vocational representation. He then quoted Burke's famous speech in which he said, he was not the Member for Bristol but a Member of the House of Commons. It seemed to me there was some contradiction in those two ideas, because in a system of vocational representation each Member would automatically become a Member for a trade or profession and would receive mandates for certain things from that trade or profession; and it would destroy or, at any rate, greatly weaken the idea of a House of Commons which Burke put forward and of which most of us still approve. The Noble Lord referred to the miserable plight of a Labour voter in Hertfordshire or to his own position if he were an elector in the county of Glamorgan. That naturally appeals to those of us who sit in this part of the House, and I would ask the Noble Lord to consider the still more miserable plight of a Liberal elector living in the Abbey Division of Westminster.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingswinford (Mr. A. Henderson) used the phrase, "one man, one unit of electoral power," which is an intellectual

way of saying "one man, one vote." I presume he means an equal unit of electoral power. I agree with what the Noble Lord had to say about the disfranchised elector in certain parts of the country, and I agree with the necessity of each voter having an equal unit of electoral power. I hope, however, that both the hon. Members above the Gangway and the Noble Lord will be prepared to follow out their ideas to their logical conclusion, for we must remember that there are great sections of opinion which have, not double representation, but no representation at all, because of the unjust workings of our electoral system. I hope that the Government will consider the matter, and consider it as part of the greater and vital question of electoral reform.

6.15 p.m.

Miss RATHBONE: I find myself to-day in sympathy with those to whom I am often opposed and opposed to those with whom I am often in sympathy, but I have listened to none of the speeches in this Debate with greater astonishment than to that of the junior Member for. Dundee (Mr. Foot). He speaks as a representative of the once great Liberal party which always stood—of recent years —for the principle of minority representation. It has been the disaster of the Liberal party that it has only been able to perceive flaws in the electoral system when those flaws told against its own party. If the Liberal party had taken its chance years ago, when it was in power, to introduce Proportional Representation it would not have been in the position in which it is to-day. There would have been much less need to plead for the retention of the university vote, which rests very largely on the need for some form of minority representation. I know perfectly well that those who have spoken in favour of this Motion sincerely believe that they are representatives of progress and stand for the future. I suggest that they are living in the past, and that they are using arguments which are characteristic of those who have allowed themselves too little time to think and therefore have to use cliches, long out-worn, based on facts which have either already ceased to be true or are rapidly ceasing to be true.
What is the idea underlying this jealousy of university representation which from time to time springs up?


Obviously it is the idea that property and wealth and social position have too much influence and too much power already. So they have, but they do not owe it to their place in the representative system, but they get it in spite of that place. What are the facts about the representative system? There is only one Member of this House, as far as I know, the Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), who ostensibly stands for the principle known as the dictatorship of the proletariat, unless the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) and his little group hold that particular view. The rest of the Opposition, both Oppositions, ostensibly do not ask that the underdog shall be the only person allowed to bark, but that the under-dog should do his fair share of barking. In effect, the representative system in this country today gives far more than that. It establishes in actual fact what is very nearly a real dictatorship of the proletariat.
What is a dictator? Is not a dictator a person who controls the Government and can change the laws if he so desires? And the proletariat, meaning by that term of course the weekly wage earners, their dependants, and persons of a similar economic status—there is nothing either derogatory or admirable in the term "proletariat," it simply describes a particular economic status—have just got that power to control the Government if they wish and to change the laws if they wish. They form the majority of voters, do they not, in nearly every constituency in the country? Indeed, I believe that if it were possible to have a census of the economic status of every constituency it might be found that even in those so-called middle-class constituencies which are permanently safe Tory seats the majority of voters are of proletarian status. The Representation of the People Act, 1927, was an admirable Act, it enfranchised women, but the change made in the balance of the electorate was due to the fact that it enfranchised domestic servants, and the effect of that on the proletarian majority has passed strangely unnoticed.
It is a fact of simple arithmetic that there is nothing to prevent the proletarians electing a Parliament composed almost exclusively of members of their own status, pledged to bring about any changes whatever which the persons of

that status desire; but why do they not do it? The hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) says, "We are looking forward to that." Why has it not happened already, when for many years the proletarians have been in the majority in the majority of constituencies? I suggest that it has not happened for two reasons, one a bad reason and one a good reason. The bad reason is that because proletarians, from no fault of their own, are so imperfectly educated they are easily bamboozled by candidates who can give them motor-cars and subscribe handsomely to football clubs, and are swayed by any cry which the opposite party machine can manage to get across the footlights. The good reason is that the British people are instinctively very cautious and very gradualist by natural temperament. The British public does not want to be hustled along too fast by people who promise it the millennium, and, also, it has a real respect for education and mistrusts the limitations of its own knowledge, and hence it seems to have a preference for persons who have received a superior, or at any rate a different and greater amount of, education.
The result of those two factors working together is that every enlargement of the franchise has always resulted in returning at first a much smaller proportion of the persons actually enfranchised than anybody expected, either the proposers of the change or the opponents of the change. Hence, even now the genuinely working-class representatives are in a minority, though in a steadily increasing number, and I expect the majority of those sitting above me would welcome the day when their numbers became proportionate to the electorates who return them. This helps to conceal from the public a fact, which is nevertheless a fact, that except through the university franchise the present Constitution provides no security at all for the direct representation in this House of what are sometimes called the middle and upper classes, but are much more the professional grades and the upper grades in industry and commerce, which are mainly recruited from university graduates.
Members of the professions, lawyers, doctors, and people very high up in commerce, are in this House, plenty of them, perhaps in too large numbers, but they are not elected by members of their


own class but are here by favour of the proletariat, and at any time that favour may be withdrawn. It is often argued that because the majority of the voters do return plenty of professional people, plenty of members of the learned professions and the upper grades, that we ought to be satisfied that those professions and those grades do not need any security from direct representation. I am a woman and I belonged, for the greater part of my life, to a grade that had not at that time either votes or anything except its influence to depend upon. We were always told that it was all right because we could influence men and from men we could get all we wanted. In the same way, the middle and upper classes and the learned professions are told that they do not need the security of direct representation because they can get representation enough through the favour of the proletarians. I suggest, if we take a broad view, if we really think of the theory of democracy, that that is not satisfactory.
What we want is a Parliament which represents all the grades of the community, which represents them not because they are wealthy but represents every aspect that can contribute something important to the structure of society. If you have a Parliament which only represents one class, even if it is the majority class, I say that that Parliament is not a true picture, is not a true mirror of the people. It is just about as much the mirror of the people as—I remember saying this here once before—a pot of Bovril is a true representation of an ox. I know that some people say "Well, what more do you want? We are not proposing to take away votes from graduates but suggesting that they shall no longer have representatives of their own." Does the House realise what percentage of the voting strength graduates have in ordinary territorial constituencies? It was reckoned a few years ago that there were, on the average, 300 graduates to an average territorial constituency of 50,000 votes. I suppose that now there are 400 graduates to such a constituency. What sort of real chance of representation does 300 out of 50,000 give? What sort of chance have they of securing that the men who are returned shall really think of the interests of this particular grade?
It is not so with any other of the big industrial occupations. Mining, textiles, fishing, and agriculture are all localised occupations. There are so many people in the different localities where those industries are carried on that they can practically return a representative directly to this House and we know perfectly well that when a debate is going on on agriculture, or mining, or fishing, the benches are crowded with the representatives of those particular industries and occupations, who speak directly for them and know all about them. Because the members of the professional occupations are so scattered, they cannot secure even a single direct representative of their own except through the university vote. I agree with the statement of the Noble Lord that in this Parliament we want something of functional representation. I should like to see more of it; though I detest Fascism in every other respect. I think this House would be a very imperfect representation of the real people if it were not for the accident to which I have alluded that most of the big occupations are localised and therefore can get representation without direct functional representation, but the learned professions and middle and upper grades can only get direct representation through the university vote.
I have a few words to say on the second charge that is always made against university representation, which is that in effect the political influence of the universities has been almost uniformly hostile to political progress. That was said many years ago by Lecky and we have heard the same thing said to-day. What a time lag in political thought that shows. Universities in those days, 60 years ago, were, indeed, a stronghold of social and class privilege. They have ceased to be that. Only this week I obtained figures from the eight universities which I represent and I found that the proportion of the students who began their education in the elementary schools varies from 33 per cent. in the smallest of the universities to 73 per cent. in the largest, and that almost 90 per cent. began their education in the rate-aided secondary schools. That is not much of a representation of privilege. The presence here of the junior Member for Oxford University (Mr. Alan Herbert) surely shows that another old theory about university representation has got to be


dropped. Can it really be said that he represents the worn-out adherence to orthodoxy which used to be expected of Oxford University, in view of his advocacy of law reform and divorce reform and all the things which Oxford University 60 years ago repelled with anathema?
The universities have ceased to be the storehouses and political strongholds of privilege and prejudice. It is possible that they are not yet what they should be, and that their representatives do not contribute all that they might give to the working of this House. I suggest that the real theory of university representation and its justification is that it should bring university representation and its justification is that it should bring into this House somethings of that atmosphere of impartiality and unprejudiced outlook upon the truth that has always been characteristic of the universities themselves. I have myself always held the theory that university representatives ought not to be attached to any political party, and I think that my own presence in this House is a sign that a good many university voters be-believe also in that theory.
I would suggest to those who are behind this Motion that they are barking up a tree for a prey that has long since taken refuge in some other House, and that what they should do is not to try to abolish university representation but to see that it does its job better; to see that universities are more representative than they are at present and become more representative every day of all classes in the community, and that they send the best possible representatives to Parliament. If those sitting above the Gangway who are responsible for this Motion propose to do away with every constituency which returns a Member of whom they do not approve, how many of the seats represented by hon. Members on the other side will be left standing? How many of those constituencies will continue, if the test is to be whether the constituency returns a Member who is pleasing to my friends above the Gangway?

6.32 p.m.

Mr. BELLENGER: I hope that other hon. Members who are sitting in this House for universities realise the implications in the hon. Lady's remarks. She

has asked for a better quality of university representative. She also gave the illustration that she was sent back not to represent any party.

Miss RATHBONE: I should be sorry if the House were to think that I wanted better representatives than my colleagues, or that I was holding myself up as the kind of representative. I was talking generally, and not in personalities.

Mr. BELLENGER: I was drawing my implication from her speech, and she did make those statements. We notice that she is the only representative of a university who is really independent. All the other Members vote almost consistently with the Government and for a party. I would deny the charge which has been made by the hon. Member for the London University (Sir E. Graham-Little), which he said he got from the London "Times," suggesting that this Motion was not brought forward by us in good faith and that it was a Motion merely to attack the Lord President of the Council and not to deal with the main subject of the removal of the university franchise. I can assure him, and tie House too, that we are quite consistent on these benches, as far as the university vote is concerned. We are only repeating to-day what was said by our Members—and indeed, by the Lord President of the Council himself—in 1931.

Sir J. WITHERS: Why do you not bring forward a Motion to abolish all plural voting?

Mr. BELLENGER: We have realised in this party that we have to go very slowly in the matter of reform. We can only go with the pace of this House, and I regret to say that the pace of this House is much slower than ours on these benches. The Noble Lord the Member for the Oxford University (Lord Hugh Cecil) almost convinced me that we might allow one university seat to remain. As I listened to his remarks, I was struck with the eloquence and the brilliance of that dissertation on abstract ideas. We are much more concerned on these benches with the concrete. We have to be. Although the remarks of the Noble Lord sounded very well, and probably will read better still, I suggest that they are more suitable for the atmosphere of the university than they are for this workaday Chamber, the House of Commons.


Whether it be true that the electorate have no direct representation in the affairs of the country or not, does not matter one iota to me. I am concerned more with the effect than with the cause.
I should like to refer to some previous speeches which were made by hon. Members who have spoken to-day. I have done a little research work, and I find that the hon. Member for London University (Sir E. Graham-Little) said, when the House was discussing the same subject in 1931:
The university electorate has particularly objected to caucus rule.… The independence of the vote in university contests has become more and more the rule and not the exception. The university, is non-party."—[OFFICIAL REPORT 3rd February, 1931; col. 1742, Vol. 247.]
I ask hon. Members to relate those words to the actual facts, as we know them in the Scottish Universities to-day. I do not think it is a breach of confidence to say that many hon. Members on the Government Benches disclosed their opinion at that by-election, and their opinions are such that they cannot substantiate what the hon. Member for London University said in 1931, that the university is non-party.
Let us take the argument that has been put forward by most university Members to-day, that they are a class apart, a special class, that ought to have representation purely because they are the representatives of learning. What would one expect from such representatives when they come into this House? One would expect them to concern themselves with matters of academic interest. Let us take, for instance, the Junior Member for Oxford University (Mr. Alan Herbert). I think it is common knowledge that his—I will not say principal—concern, or two of his principal concerns, are connected with divorce and beer. I may suggest that both of those are misleading cases. Those are not the subjects one would expect a University Member to bring forward. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] When he does bring one of them forward he will not meet with the reception which he expects from the party sitting behind him.
Another quotation is from the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Sir J. Withers). This is what he said in 1931—and I mention these quotations because we have been charged with inconsistency:

The universities would be perfectly satisfied if it was decided that, after a careful consideration by all parties of the merits of the case, the university vote should be done away with… When it is done as a cynical bargain for party advantage, they submit a reasonable protest."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1931; col. 1697, Vol. 247.]
Did they? In the Scottish University by-election did they submit a reasonable protest? It is for reasons like that that we say in good faith that the university franchise should be done away with. I admit many of the things that university representatives have said about the universities, so far as their knowledge and learning are concerned, and I assure them that we on these Benches want all that the universities can give us, except specialised representation. That is contrary to the democratic principle on which this House is founded. If you give representation to the university, why not carry the principle farther, to the public schools, for instance? Or is it perhaps that the public schools are adequately represented in our system?
No argument has been advanced from the Government Benches or from University Members. Whatever may be said about our argument for abolishing this franchise, and about retaining the university vote, it is quite contrary to democratic principles. The Representation of the People Act of 1918, although it extended that vote, was based entirely, or almost entirely, on geographical considerations, and that is the best system we can have in present circumstances.

6.41 p.m.

Mr. PICKTHORN: I am sorry not to be able to carry out as fully as I could wish, Sir, your admonition as to the cut-and-thrust of Debate. There has hardly been an argument put from the other side to which I do not feel myself able to give some answer, but in the very short time left to me it is not possible to do more than make one or two positive points which I do not think have been put from this side. There are, however, one or two points from the other side to which I should like to reply, and the first is the logical fallacy so popular on the benches opposite, and repeated in the concluding remarks of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger). That fallacy is: "If this is a good thing, why not have more of it?" In other words, if half a pint of beer is a good


thing to drink, why not drink a lot more of it? There is no end to that argument. Another point is that about the universities being non-party. In what sense of party; in the sense of a confederacy of men to get the pleasures and profits of office? Another of the charges against university men is that they are ineffective, and that they are not successful. Indeed, the three charges with which the. Mover began, perform, what I should have thought the impossible feat for three charges, that of being each diametrically opposite to the others. He said in the first place that we are not independent enough, in the second place that we do not climb the Parliamentary ladder successfully and, in the third place, that we tend to be ex-Prime Ministers.
You cannot have any two of those. In regard to ex-Prime Ministers, we have heard a great deal too much about the Scottish universities for which, although I have a high respect, I have not so high a comparative respect as the leader of the party below the Gangway. It is not my fault and, as the hon. Gentleman who spoke for the Independent Liberal party said, it is not his fault. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is our misfortune."] Hon. Gentlemen opposite spent 35 years making him into an ex-Prime Minister. [An HON. MEMBER: "You did it in a day."] About universities being non-party, I began to say that it depends upon the definition of party. Certainly, in any university contest that I know anything about there can hardly be said to be any party organisation at all. I do not know what whips or scorpions are cracked on the banks of the Clyde or the Dee, but there are certainly none to crack on the banks of the Cam. The difficulty is that there is no party organisation. The difficulty in any constituency, except a university constituency, is to get nominated. The rotten part of our constitution, if there is a rotten part, is in the selection of candidates. [Interruption.] It is no more rotten on one side than the other. University candidates can perfectly easily get somebody to nominate them, and can be put up at little or no expense. The business of the electors is to choose between them.
Something has been said about victimisation, but I beg the hon. Member who said it to believe that nobody who knows

anything of the way universities are run could suppose that his statement had any relation to the facts. Another thing that was alleged, I think by the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), was that we were peculiar and superior, and someone else said that we were a class apart. I should like to repeat that, as the hon. Member for the English Universities (Miss Rathbone) said, we are not a class apart. To begin with, we are not a class. In the case of nearly every other constituency it can be said that the Member represents this or that class; it can be said of almost any Member of this House that he belongs to this or that class; but it would be found extremely difficult to say either of those things about the university Members.

Mr. MESSER: Are they no class, then?

Mr. PICKTHORN: No class at all, I hope. Firstly, we are not a class, and, secondly, we are not apart. If we were apart, we might be organised in different ways, and there might be representatives of us here, but it is extraordinarily difficult to suppose that there would be many, if any, representatives of us here without some special provision. If I may refer to the particular sub-species of university Member of which I am an example, I am sure the House will do me the justice of thinking that I have a very keen awareness of my own unfitness. How is it to be supposed that the practising don, the man who really is academic—I think I am the most completely academic person in this House—is ever to get the time or the money to fight any constituency? It is very nearly, if not quite, impossible. I do not suggest that he is a much better man than the rest, though I myself think that dons are a very admirable class. Is it fair that there should be only one of them in this House, or not more than one or two? It would be very difficult to get more than one or two by any other method. They have no trade organisation behind them; they have mostly no personal fortunes. People talk of this being a special representation for a vested interest. So it is, in the sense in which Oliver Cromwell or Benjamin Disraeli used the term when they spoke of the nation being made up of interests combined together; but it is not an interest in any sinister sense. If


anyone wishes to prove that, they can go back to Henry the VIII, who, when he had finished relieving the monasteries, thought of relieving the universities. After making inquiries, however, he said that he could not have believed that so many men were virtuously kept on so small an income. Inquiries about conditions at the present day will show that the same is true now.
So much by way of answering one or two things that have been said from the other side. There are one or two positive points that I wish to make. The first is about what I may call, as Charles Kingsley called it, arithmocracy. It has been argued by the Senior Burgess for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil) that that is not, and should not be, the basis of our composition, and hon. Members opposite do not really want it to be. They made that quite clear the other day when we were debating the question of re-distribution, for they all assumed, and no fewer than three said specifically, that you ought not to consider only equality of numbers. That is not only not a good basis, but it is a basis from which hon. Gentlemen opposite are estopped. Secondly, as regards the representation of academic personages in this House, I have already pointed out that it would be extremely difficult for what I may call 100 per cent. academic persons to get into this House by any other method.
Another point is that every other interest in this nation is always represented on both Front Benches. There is always a Minister, and a gentleman waiting to be Minister, to look after the interests of everything else as they come up for discussion here. That is not true, and I hope it never will be true, of the highest organisation of education. For about 100 years we have been conducting the experiment, which most of us are apt to assume is a permanent dispensation, but which is really a highly transitory experiment, of trying to allow to participate in active Government people who do not agree on fundamentals. Most other nations that have tried it have given it up. Russia, Italy, Germany and so on have given it up; we are almost the only nation that has tried it and is continuing to try it.
I think that all hon. Members opposite say that they do not want totalitarianism,

although, if they get into power and stay in power long enough to socialise us to any purpose, they will find it very difficult to avoid. It is very difficult for Government Departments to control the production and distribution of everything else and not control the production and distribution of knowledge and ideas. But at present, at any rate, they admit that they are opposed to totalitarianism. If that is to be avoided, what is most necessary is, as the history of every country in Europe has shown, that the higher education should be free from the trammels of central and governmental control. The universities are not represented on the Front Benches by the Minister of Education, the next Minister of Education, the last Minister of Education, and so on. That source of defence and representation we have never had, and I hope we never shall have it. Here are 12 of us who, we have been told time and again to-day, are ineffective persons who do not talk very often and do not get on. Are we an excessive counterpoise to represent that interest as compared, with every other interest, each of which has Front Bench representation, with all the official and personal weight that it carries? I had a peroration, but I have already addressed the House as long as is proper, and I will say no more.

6.54 p.m.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd): I rise to make a few very brief observations on this subject. I think the House will agree that we have had a very interesting Debate, and also that we have had very interesting contributions from university Members. At the beginning there were some criticisms of the general quality of university Members from some hon. Gentlemen opposite, but for my part I take the view that their contributions this afternoon go far to disprove those allegations. Taking, for example, the speech of the Senior Burgess for Oxford University (Lord H. Cecil), it goes without saying that it is a pleasure to everyone in the House to listen to him. Even the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) admitted that he was charmed, and I hope he was convinced, by that speech. The hon. Member for Kingswinford (Mr. A. Henderson)—he and I were at Cambridge together, and I hope are both electors


of the university at the present time—also referred to the Senior Burgess for Oxford University as perhaps the greatest commoner of the last 50 years. We also had what I thought was an extraordinarily interesting speech, and, if I may say so, an individual speech, from the hon. Member for the English Universities (Miss Rathbone), and another very interesting speech from the Junior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn), who, as not everyone in the House will know, is a very distinguished constitutional historian.
The point which I desire to make, and which I do not think has been adequately met on the opposite side of the House to-day, is that we do get, from the representation of the universities in this House, certain individual types which are valuable to this House and to the country, and which are not likely to be returned in sufficient numbers from the ordinary constituencies of the country. I do not think it is a sufficient argument to say, as some hon. Members have said, including, I think, the hon. Member for Kingswinford, that few of the able men in this House in the past have been returned by the university constituencies. That is hardly the point. It is not suggested that it is only university constituencies that return able men to this House, but it is suggested, as one justification for them, that they return a particular type of ability which could not come here in other ways. I do not think I can better explain what is at any rate my own attitude than by reading the following words of the late Lord Balfour:
I am not going into details, and I am not going to balance one name against another name, but I boldly say that these university constituencies compare undoubtedly favourably with any constituencies in the country for the eminence of the men they returned. Even when they were not men who held great positions in history, they have in their time constantly been leading Members of this House, men having authority and belonging to a class, which some people think is a diminishing class, who held relatively independent positions upon public questions of the day.
Of course it is not by any means true that there have not been men of outstanding ability representing universities; the names of William Pitt the younger, Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone are a sufficient indication of that. As to the general question, the position to-day with regard to university repre-

sentation is as it was laid down in the Representation of the People Act, 1918, as the result of a compromise between the parties, and I suggest that the onus rests upon hon. Gentleman opposite who wish to disturb this, arrangement, to prove fully to this House that a change from the present position is really required. I suggest that, whatever may have been the arguments in relation to this question in earlier days, the present position with regard to university representation is a case for its becoming stronger day by day.
Lingering in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and running through all this Debate, has been the idea which was expressed in terse language by the hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. Thurtle) when he said that university representation was the pocket borough of reaction. A case might have been made out for that argument in earlier days, particularly in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, when only the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge had representation, but since then the franchise has been extended to London University, the Scottish Universities, the University of Wales and the rest of the English Universities. That undermines the strength of the hon. Member's argument in the first place, but there are, of course, far stronger reasons to undermine it. One is the great change in the character of those who are full-time students at the universities at the present time.
Various hon. Members have mentioned that subject to-day, and I myself, regarding it as a subject of crucial importance in connection with this question, inquired of the University Grants Committee whether they could give me any definite figures about it. I will give the results of my inquiry to the House. I find that in their last report they state that no less than 45 per cent. of the total number of full-time students at the universities were in receipt of Financial assistance from one source or another. That is one point. The second point is that at least 50 per cent. of the students in the provincial universities of the country began their education in public elementary schools. It is not, however, in the least justifiable to assume that those who are outside these figures are necessarily the sons of people of the well-to-do or comfortable classes. It is within the knowledge of nearly every hon. Member


of this House that if there is one thing parents will make real sacrifices for it is to provide a university education for their sons. It was with these considerations in mind that the University Grants Committee stated in their last report:
If, therefore, the impression still lingers in any quarter that our university institutions are only accessible to young, men and women in relatively easy circumstances, these figures may do something to remove it.
I suggest to the House that the influence of the universities to-day is not static, but is increasing. It is not possible to represent the withdrawal of the university franchise as a withdrawal of representatives from a centre of privilege. It would be a withdrawal of representatives from the higher learning of this country.
There are two forms of plural voting, the university vote and the business premises vote. I cannot understand why hon. Members opposite should have refrained from attacking their bugbear of property and should have directed their attack against the higher learning. Apart from the increasingly democratic nature of the students at the universities I believe that there is no institution in the country which has conformed more completely to the modern age than the universities. They have developed the scientific side of their work. They have become more and more in touch with industry and all phases of the national life in need of research, and in general I believe that the universities are fulfilling their functions now as well as at any time in their history. I hold that the function of a university in a free community is a very important one. I would ask hon. Members not to tell me at this point that these are theoretical questions, and that they are concerned only with questions of economic and social importance. We cannot take that view in days like these. It is very important what the system of government is, and what is the actual balance of the community. It would make a great deal of difference to hon. Members opposite if they were to live not in this country but under some of the dictators in Europe.
The university is a centre of learning. It. maintains certain educational and other standards. It is the spring and source of new intellectual movements which may mould our whole community.

In order to perform that function it is vital that the universities should be free and independent, as ours are in this country, unlike those of many foreign nations, and that is an essential condition of their representation here, If it is important that their freedom and independence should be maintained, we have to consider the tendencies of the present day. There is a powerful tendency towards centralisation, the universities have to accept grants from central authorities, and any safeguards we can maintain which will help them to keep their independence is of considerable importance. One can think of no better safeguard for that freedom and independence than their representation in this House. Any tendency they may have through contact with the Government of the day to become subservient to it or to a Government Department, is reduced to the minimum. That is the consideration which we have to consider now.
The last time this question was raised was when the right hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) proposed to abolish university representation. In the last part of his speech there were continual recurrences to the theme that it would be proper to do so because it was in tune with the rising tide of democratic practice. Could even the right hon. Gentleman talk of the rise of democracy to-day?

Mr. THURTLE: We all have our ebbs and flows.

Mr. LLOYD: It is a very serious ebb at this time. I would suggest to the House that these considerations have much greater importance than they would have had a short time ago. We should bear in mind that much more elaborate democratic systems than our own have ceased to exist, whereas our own, in which there are a number of things which some people regard as anomalies, has withstood the difficult times, and there is nothing which gives the people of this country greater satisfaction. What are the things which have enabled us to withstand these critical days? It is the temperamental characteristic of this country and of this House that if it finds that a certain arrangement which, though it may be open to some theoretical objections, is nevertheless working well, they let it go on working well. If this House acts on that consideration, as I hope it


will, it will emphatically reject the hon. Member's Motion.

7.8 p.m.

Mr. ARTHUR GREENWOOD: I think all Members of the House have enjoyed the speech of the Under-Secretary, which has been marked mainly by its irrelevance to the point at issue. I imagine that this Motion will be rejected. All that "the old school tie" stands for is at stake in this Debate. But the day will come when other school ties, perhaps not so prominent, may get their way. I am sorry that the Lord President of the Council has not found it possible to be here to-day. I understand that he has a longstanding engagement in his new-found constituency which prevents him from being here. I am sure that the House would have liked to have had from him his confession on the spiritual change which he has undergone in recent years. We are deprived of that great testimony to the value of university representation, and the House will have to make up its mind without it. I am interested in this question as a university voter, as the President of the University Labour Federation which is pledged to support the extinction of the university vote, and I am interested in it also because I made the last speech in 1931 when the particular Clause in the Representation of the People Bill was defeated with the assistance of the Liberal party. I am glad now to think they have come to heel.
I wish to say nothing disrespectful about any university representative, but we are entitled to ask whether these representatives from the homes of learning are really more outstanding than other Members of the House. The Under-Secretary said that one of the great advantages of the university representation is that it brings individual types to this House. That may be true. The junior Member for Oxford University (Mr. Alan Herbert) is pledged, I understand, to produce a brighter House of Commons. But if it is to be a question of individual types, I have taken a few names at random—the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten), a pawky Scottish lawyer whose name I shall not mention, the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and the right hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury).

Are these not individual types, far more individual than the vast majority of representatives who come to this House from the university constituencies? If we were to parade Members of the House in three groups it would he an interesting spectacle. I should like to see first an array of the noble 12, the representatives of the universities. Following them, all the university electors in this House, including such diverse people as the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Max ton) and myself. Thirdly, would be the rest of the faithful Commons. If that parade marched solemnly down Westminster Hall before the eyes of the people I suggest that nobody who watched would be able to know which were the really important.

Mr. PICKTHORN: I do not think it was suggested that university representatives were individual types in any sense of superiority or even of personal distinction, but that it might be possible for some professions to get representation here which would otherwise get little or none. The representatives mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman fall into three small classes.

Mr. GREENWOOD: There were only two points made by the Under-Secretary in his speech. One was a defence of the universities and their place in the community, and the other that the universities did supply what he called individual types. All I am concerned to point out is that there is a larger variety of individual types outside the universities representatives than there is inside. As regards the common man, the majority of them would not reognise the 12 university representatives as being of any outstanding importance. No case has been made for the special representation of the universities. What it has come down to is special representation. When I heard the Noble Lord, the repository of our ancient, constitution, the upholder of all the oldest traditions in this country—I respect him, but I disagree with him—coming forward with a proposal of this kind of special representation, and the hon. Member for Cambridge University making the same point, I was astonished at the intellectual revolution which has taken place in the minds of university representatives: What are they asking for? The thing


that we know as syndicalism, the corporate state, representation of special interests, the totalitarian State. That is the logic of the case that has been put in this House to-day iii support of maintaining university representation.

Mr. HANNAH: If that is the case, surely your party must vote for it?

Mr. GREENWOOD: We stand in this House as the only true guardians of the democratic system. There is another subsidiary argument, which was brought forward by the hon. Lady the Member for the Combined English Universities (Miss Rathbone), namely, that what we want in this House is representation of the intellectual underdog. That is the ease that was put by the junior Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn). Those arguments do not influence us in the least. I have tried to explain our objections to the continuation of this form of representation in the Commons House of Parliament. In the first place, it is inefficient. If any rural district council ran its local elections as the universities run theirs, it would be made the subject of a question in the House of Commons. I could quote hundreds of cases of graduates, duly entitled to vote, who have never received their ballot papers. There were scores of them in the Scottish Universities by- election who never got a ballot paper. Why? Because with that fine efficience characterises our universities they are not able to produce a machine to send out a ballot paper. It seems to me almost as if anybody could get a ballot paper. I am not suggesting that ballot papers fall into the wrong hands, but I am suggesting that it would be possible for people with a list of university graduates to get enough ballot papers to make the difference in polling for the Scottish Universities by-election. If we had been wise enough or dishonest enough we might have done that.
To us on this side of the House, having regard to the victimisation of agricultural workers, the secrecy of the ballot is fundamental, but it does not hold in the case of the universities. The university voting paper hears the name of the voter, and the candidate, and the candidate or his representative can scrutinise the paper, and does so. I am glad that the

hon. Member for London University (Sir E. Graham-Little) is here. He has beery telling us that they have no party organisation there, but I am bound to compliment him on having an excellent one of his own.

Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: May I return my thanks for that compliment, and point out that the right hon. Gentleman is perhaps smarting under a sense of defeat, because the organisation that worked for his candidate was childish.

Mr. GREENWOOD: That may be true. My point is that the hon. Member for London University is aware how the electors vote, and I say that that is. wrong. It cannot be defended. It may not happen in all universities, but it may happen in more than the case of London. In the case of London University he is not only Member of Parliament for the University, but he is a member of the senate and a member of the Council of the University. He has an influence on promotions within the University. When my hon. Friend referred to political influence, he was right. All universities are not as free as Oxford and Cambridge. In those universities there is a good deal of freedom of expression, which may account for the fact that the largest political clubs in the two universities are Labour clubs.

Mr. PICKTHORN: Not now.

Mr. GREENWOOD: I will not stop to argue that now. It is very serious that university graduates who may be on the staff of universities may have even a shadow of fear that the way they vote may be used against them. The hon. Member for London University cannot complain that he does not know how people voted. He does know. He had a little trouble on the question of the London University site with a very distinguished scholar, Sir William Beveridge, the head of the London School of Economics. Sir William Beveridge is not a member of the Labour party. I believe he was attached to the party below the Gangway. At the end of a letter in which the hon. Member for London University replied to Sir William Beveridge, he said:
Sir William Beveridge is the Director of the London School of Economics. Members of his School figured conspicuously, as was to be expected, in the published list of supporters of my Socialist opponent. Sir


William Beveridge voted for him but could not secure his election.
He had no right to use that fact.

Sir E. GRAHAM-LITTLE: Every university has the same system of scrutinising the votes. That is the system upon which we work.

Mr. GREENWOOD: That is my case. It is a flagrant example. In university voting there is no real secrecy. The elections are run most inefficiently. The truth is, that university representation today is an anomaly. It will be supported by hon. Members on the other side of the House because it provides a number of pretty safe Tory and independent seats, sufficient seats, perhaps, to make the difference between a Tory Government and a Labour Government in the future. They will hang on to these seats as long as they can. They are the last bulwarks of the Tory party. Apart from the City of London they are the only safe Tory seats that will be left in a relatively short space of time.
There is another reason, and a new one, which has come to light. Mr. Gladstone was rejected by Oxford University, and he said when he went away that he was then unmuzzled. A great constitutional historian has said that because Gladstone got his freedom and went to a Northern constituency he was able to become the leader of the Liberal party.

Lord H. CECIL: He was turned out at the next election.

Mr. GREENWOOD: I think he was Member for South-East Lancashire. However that may be, university constituencies have not produced a large number

of Prime Ministers, but they have found a refuge for an ex-Prime Minister. The value of university seats to the National Government is to provide refugees for defeated politicians who are unable to get into the House of Commons by the front door. Reference has been made to the Scottish Universities bye-election. Everyone knows that that was not the free choice of the Scottish Universities. Everybody knows of the log-rolling that went on in order to persuade the Scottish Universities, especially Glasgow, to accept the ex-Prime Minister. I can well imagine the university seats remaining as long as the National Government and the Tory party can uphold them as possible refuges in time of trouble for people who cannot otherwise get into the House of Commons.

We do not propose this Motion because we do not want to see people from the universities in this House. We want to see people of all kinds of experience here. We oppose university representation for the very reason that has been put forward in its support, namely, special representation. It is double representation. If the case put forward to-day that the universities are becoming increasingly democratic and the students more and more representative, then there is less cause for this form of representation than there used to be. I hope that hon. Members will exercise some independence of judgment, and that those who are university graduates and voters who do not take party views, but look at things on their merits, will support us in the Lobby on this occasions.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 130; Noes, 227.

Division No. 62.]
AYES.
[7.30 p.m.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Clynes, Rt. Hon. J. R.
Green, W. H. (Deptford)


Adamson, W. M.
Compton, J.
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Cove, W. G,
Grenfell, D. R.


Ammon, C. G.
Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Daggar, G.
Groves, T. E.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Dalton, H.
Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)


Banfield, J. W.
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)


Batey, J.
Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)
Hardie, G. D.


Bellenger, F.
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Harris, Sir P. A.


Benson, G.
Day, H.
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)


Bevan, A.
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)


Broad, F. A.
Ede, J. C.
Hicks, E. G.


Bromfield, W.
Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)
Holdsworth, H.


Brooke, W.
Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Holland, A.


Brown, C. (Mansfield)
Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.
Hollins, A.


Buchanan, G.
Frankel, D.
Hopkin, D.


Cape, T.
Gardner, B. W.
Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)


Charleton, H. C.
George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Jenkins, Sir W. (Neath)


Chater, D.
George, Megan Lloyd (Anglesey)
John, W.


Cluse, W. S.
Gibbins. J.
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)




Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Messer, F.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Kelly, W. T.
Milner, Major J.
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)


Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Montague, F.
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Kirby, B. V.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)
Sorensen, R. W.


Kirkwood, D.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.
Naylor, T. E.
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Lawson, J. J.
Paling, W.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Leach, W.
Parker, H. J. H.
Thorne, W.


Lee, F.
Pethick- Lawrence, F. W.
Thurtle, E.


Leonard, W.
Potts, J.
Tinker, J. J.


Leslie, J. R.
Price, M. P.
Walkden, A. G.


Logan, D. G.
Pritt, D. N.
Walker, J.


Lunn, W.
Richards, R. (Wrexham)
Watkins, F. C.


Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)
Westwood, J.


McEntee, V. La T.
Riley, B.
White, H. Graham


McGovern, J.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)
Whiteley, W.


MacLaren, A.
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Maclean, N.
Rowson, G.
Williams, T. (Don Valley)


MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)
Salter, Dr. A.
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


Mander, G. le M.
Sexton, T. M.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Marklew, E.
Shinwell, E.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Marshall, F.
Short, A.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Mathers, G.
Simpson, F. B.



Maxton, J.
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—




Mr. Vlant and Mr. A. Henderson.




NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Davison, Sir W. H.
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)


Adams, S. V. T. (Leeds, W.)
De Chair, S. S.
Latham, Sir P.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Denman, Hon. R. D.
Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)


Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir W. J. (Armagh)
Denville, Alfred
Leech, Dr. J. W.


Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.
Dower, Capt. A. V. G.
Levy, T.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)
Little, Sir E. Graham.


Aske, Sir R. W.
Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.


Assheton, R.
Dugdale, Major T. L.
Lloyd, G. W.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)
Duggan, H. J.
Loder, Captain Hon. J. de V.


Atholl, Duchess of
Duncan. J. A. L.
Loftus, P. C.


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Dunglass, Lord
MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G


Balfour, G. (Hampstead)
Dunne, P. R. R.
McCorquodale, M. S.


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Eastwood, J. F.
McEwen, Capt. H. J. F.


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)
Edmondson, Major Sir J.
McKie, J. H.


Bernays, R. H.
Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)


Birchall, Sir J. D.
Ellis, Sir G.
Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.


Blair, Sir R.
Elmley, Viscount
Magnay, T.


Blaker, Sir R.
Emery, J. F.
Maitland, A.


Blindell, Sir J.
Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.


Borodale, Viscount
Entwistle, C. F.
Manningham-Buller, Sir M.


Bossom, A. C.
Errington, E.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.


Boulton, W. W.
Erskine Hill, A. G.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.


Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.
Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)


Boyce, H. Leslie
Evans, E. (Univ. of Wales)
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)


Bracken, B.
Everard, W. L.
Mitchell, H. (Brentford and Chiswick)


Brass, Sir W.
Fildes, Sir H.
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univ's.)


Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Fremantle, Sir F. E.
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.


Brocklebank C. E. R.
Fyfe, D. P. M.
Nail, Sir J.


Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)
Ganzoni, Sir J.
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. G.


Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Gluckstein, L. H.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.


Brown, Brig. -Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Goldie, N. B.
Palmer, G. E. H.


Bull, B. B.
Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
Patrick, C. M.


Butler, R. A.
Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.
Penny, Sir G.


Campbell, Sir E. T.
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Percy, Rt. Hon. Lord E.


Cartland, J. R. H.
Grigg, Sir E. W. M.
Perkins, W. R. D.


Carver, Major W. H.
Grimston, R. V.
Petherick, M.


Cautley, Sir H. S.
Gunston, Capt. D. W.
Pilkington, R.


Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)
Guy, J. C. M.
Plugge, L. F.


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Hacking, Rt. Hon. D. H.
Procter, Major H. A.


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)
Hanbury, Sir C.
Radford, E. A.


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh
Hannah, I. C.
Raikes, H. V. A. M.


Channon, H.
Harbord, A.
Ramsden, Sir E.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Harvey, G.
Rankin, R.


Chapman, Sir S. (Edinburgh, S.)
Haslam, Sir J. (Bolton)
Rathbone, Eleanor (English Univ's.)


Christie, J. A.
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)


Clarry, Sir R. G.
Heneage, Lieut. -Colonel A. P
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Cobb, Sir C. S.
Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan.
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)


Colfox, Major W. P.
Herbert, A. P. (Oxford U.)
Reid, Sir D. D. (Down)


Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)
Robinson, J. R. (Blackpool)


Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Holmes, J. S.
Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'derry)


Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)


Craddock, Sir R. H.
Hopkinson, A.
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.


Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)


Cross. R, H.
Howitt, Dr. A. B.
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Crossley, A. C.
Hume, Sir G. H.
Russell. S. H. M. (Darwen)


Crowder, J. F. E.
Jackson, Sir H.
Salmon, Sir I.


Culverwell, C. T.
Keeling, E. H.
Salt, E. W.


Davidson, Rt. Hon. Sir J. C. C.
Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)
Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)







Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Wakefieid, W. W.


Sandys. E. D.
Storey, S.
Wallace, Captain Euan


Savery, Servington
Stourton, Hon. J. J.
Ward, Lieut. col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Scott, Lord William
Strauss, E. A. (Southwark, N.)
Ward, Irene (Wallsend)


Selley, H. R.
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Shakespeare, G. H.
Strickland, Captain W. F.
Wedderburn, H. J. S.


Simmonds, O. E.
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton- (N'thw'h)
Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.


Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U. B'lf'st),
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Williams, H G. (Croydon, S.)


Smiles, Lieut. Colonel Sir W. D.
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)
Sutcliffe, H.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Smithers, Sir W.
Tasker, Sir R. I.
Wise, A. R.


Somerset, T.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)
Withers, Sir J. J.


Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Somerville, A. A. (Windsor)
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley


Somerville, D. 6. (Willesden, E.)
Titchfield, Marquess of
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Southby, Comdr, A. R. J.
Touche, G. C.



Spears, Brig. Gen. E. L.
Train, Sir J.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Spender-Clay, Lt.-Cl. Rt. Hn. H. H.
Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.
Mr. Graham Kerr and Mr. Pickthorn.


Spens, W. P.
Tufnell, Lieut. -Com. R. L.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

LONDON RATING (UNOCCUPIED HEREDITAMENTS) BILL (By Order.)

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

7.39 p.m.

Mr. CROOM-JOHNSON: I beg to move, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day six months."
The subject with which this particular Bill deals is one, which, I confess for my part, is outside any general political issue, and I approach it from the point of view of one who is a ratepayer in London and has no other interest in the matter whatever. I desire to discuss the Bill, as far as I can, from the point of view of a number of quite humble people who, as I see the Measure, are likely to suffer somewhat considerably if we give the Bill a Second Reading. I suppose that it is known to those of us who were present in the last Parliament that there are a number of Members who think that private legislation of this sort, of a purely local character, should not make amendments in the general law of the country. We take the view, which we believe is the right view, that, with the considerable extension in the means of communication throughout the country, there is rather too much of a local character about a good deal of our legislation, and that it is nowadays highly inconvenient that the law, certainly on major matters, and on a great many minor matters too, should be defined according to whether you start from over some boundary which

is to be perceived upon the map but is not to be perceived at all by the ordinary traveller through the country.
But when you come to deal with a subject like the present one every argument which can be advanced against local legislation dealing with amendments in the general law can be advanced to a very much greater extent. A matter of this sort, highly important as no doubt it is, should not be dealt with through the ordinary Private Bill legislation of Parliament. I observe that in the case. for the promoters they ask that the matter should be allowed to go upstairs where evidence may be called, but I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that that evidence must of necessity, if the Bill goes upstairs, be confined to the County of London, and further that, if the Bill were given a Second Reading and by any accident got upon the Statute Book, the demand would be almost irresistible for the law to be similarly extended to other parts of the country in respect of which the evidence would not have been examined, and where the case for the spread throughout the country would, therefore, not really have been made the subject of complete discussion and criticism.
I do not want to take up time on this main point. My hon. Friends and I who have put down the Amendment for the rejection of the Bill have expressed our views on this topic many times previously. We have opposed local Bills coming from local bodies on many previous occasions wholly independently of any particular political complexion that the particular local body might happen to have, and we feel, as we felt before we had been approached by any body of persons whatever in connection with this matter, that if ever there was a time when the Iaw


was to be amended for an area as distinct from the general law of the country, this was the time when we must make our protest. As I have said, I approach the matter simply from the point of view of a London ratepayer with no interest in any of the matters that are likely, if the Bill passes, to be made subject to the proposed legislation. I have no interest in the taxation of property of any sort or kind in any part of the country, as far as I am aware, and, that being so, I want to examine this proposed legislation and what it is likely to accomplish.
I should like to say one other word having regard to certain statements which have been made outside. I speak purely in my capacity as a private Member. I represent no organisation of any sort or kind. I put my Amendment down without having been approached by any organisation, and I stand at this moment entirely independent of any body of persons except for communications from a small number of my constituents who think that, if the Bill passes, the matter is likely to be extended into the county of Somerset, with which I am connected. I want, therefore, to look at the proposal from the point of view of trying to see whether it is one that is going to be of any advantage to the community as a whole. If it is, the House will, no doubt, act in accordance with that view, but I want to offer to those who have promoted the Bill some considerations which lead me to the view that this matter has not really been examined with sufficient care in all its implications.
Rating is, at best, in every-day practice a very difficult job when you come to deal with it. I have no doubt that, if we were all free to invent an entirely new system of rating, there are a great many things in the existing system that we should desire to see altered. I have no doubt that some of the difficulties and inconsistencies which have crept into our system of rating since its birth, as long ago as the reign of Queen. Elizabeth, might, if we started all over again with a clean slate, be put in a different way. But I am bound to recognise that a very large number of people, particularly people of humble means, have so conducted their affairs in life that they have relied upon the system as it exists. They know the evils and they know some of the difficulties, but they have conducted themselves upon the basis that when

houses and hereditaments, as they are called in the Bill, are producing no rent and are lying empty there is no liability to the local authority for rates.
We must recognise that a very large percentage of the houses in the County of London are owned by people who, through thrift, and perhaps a tiny legacy here and there, have managed to secure houses for themselves or for their friends. I want to approach the matter rather from that point of view, to see what the possibility is of this change affecting them. One must recognise that a very large percentage of the houses in London —the figure is not mine; I give it as it reached me—are subject to mortgages. It has been suggested to me that as many as 95 per cent. of houses in London—I assume that means the houses of people of moderate means—are subject to mortgages. A very large number of them are subject to ground rent. A very large number of them are intended to be lived in by the people who buy them, but a great many people who buy houses intending to live in them meet the fate which must come to all of us in the end and frequently they leave behind those who find themselves in a much worse position than they were—I will take a familiar case—during the husband's lifetime, and very frequently it happens that they are forced to give up possession because they are unable to go on residing there. I know that there is a Clause in the Bill that is supposed to give some amount of relief to such persons upon their making application within the somewhat elaborate terms in the Bill. I have examined the Clause to see whether it really meets the case. I do not think it does.
Let us see what the situation is with regard to a number of these houses. This is an actual case, put to me quite recently, a case quite familiar in London, with a ground rent of £10 a year and a mortgage of about £350. The rate is about 5 per cent., because of course you are dealing with leasehold premises, which are frequently met with in London. If that man has a mortgage upon the house, he has to find during the time the house is let the amount of his mortgage interest and the amount of his ground rent. The mortgagee, therefore, knows that, assuming that such a house—this again is a figure which may be taken as generally indicative of the example that


I am giving—is worth £60 a year, you get, when you have made all your deductions for repairs and so forth, an ample margin which is available by way of the difference between the ground rent plus the mortgage interest and the rent which is really what helps to form the security for the mortgage. A great many of these houses are purchased through building societies and we shall have to consider, and I hope the House will consider, the effect of these proposals on building societies, thrift societies and other similar organisations which advance money to their members on the security of houses which they purchase for the occupation of themselves or others. Assume that a house falls empty and assume, as very often happens if it is an old-fashioned house, not with all those modern conveniences that so many people seem to desire, or containing too many rooms, or for one or other of the very many reasons why it is that houses do not let, and you find that, if this Bill goes through, the owner will find himself with £10 ground rent, with his mortgage interest, which I have taken at five per cent., on £350 and, in addition, the extra rate.
It is true that such a person may be able to go to the local authority under Clause 7 and make an application. That, in the view that I take of it, is extremely circumscribed in its character and gives very little security to the owner. But think of the effect of it with regard to the future when a man who is building such a house is going to try to get a mortgage to assist in its construction. At present he would be able to say to the mortgagee, "Here is the possible rental value and here are the outgoings. There is a wide margin and you can safely advance the money." It may be that there ought to be no cause for alarm on the part of the mortgagee, but how are you going to get hold of all the individuals who lend money in this way, many of them quite humble people? Small mortgages of a few hundred pounds saved by long years of endeavour and thrift are quite commonly obtained every day through solicitors. You will have to go to these individuals if you can and persuade them that the security is just as good after as it was before.
I can see great difficulty in attempting to do it, and I can see the further diffi-

culty that the obvious answer of the, individual who is invited to lend his money will be, "I cannot be quite sure. I think there is an added risk," and his solicitor will probably try to get an extra half or one per cent. upon the mortgage interest. I am not dealing with the large owner of properly, who can probably stand up to the increased burden. These are cases of small private mortgages to small owners of property who themselves very often find that the margin is extremely near, and one meets many such people of whom it is safe to say that every sovereign matters. You will find this sort of point occurring. The total amount of rateable income in the county of London—I think I have the figures for 1933–34—is just under £30,000,000 a year. The amount of money that I have seen estimated as likely to come out of this proposed additional rate is about £300,000 a year. I make that about one per cent. The 25 per cent. has been fixed, I suppose, because that is the smallest sum which it is economically possible to collect, because the costs of collection as you go down the scale are obviously going to be much more disproportionate. But, if you are only going to collect a rate of five per cent., which I submit might on a certain view be a fair sum, it is plain that the cost of collection of five per cent. of the existing rate is likely to be out of all proportion to any value that is going to be obtained.
I want the House to think for a moment of the £300,000. That. is the amount which it is estimated will be received. It is said that the total amount of extra rates which could be obtained—again I take the figure.; for 1933–34—if all the voids were filled would be about £1,400,000. I have seen a figure, given by the right hon. Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison) in a newspaper article yesterday, of £1,200,000, and, if you take his figure, one-quarter of that is £300,000, a figure which has been given elsewhere. That, again, is subject to all the exemptions provided for in the Act, to the supposition that property which has not been let for some time is likely to be of the same assessable value as if it were fully let—a supposition to which I cannot subscribe—and also subject to the difficulty which arises with regard to factories. For rating purposes the additional value


given to a factory because of the machinery installed is used to bring up the assessable value whereas it is a positive difficulty in the way of letting the factory if the machinery is left behind. I suggest that the figure of £300,000 is an extreme figure to take.
A simple calculation will show one other thing. If the result of this reform, as it is called, is going to do what is suggested, namely, to force owners of houses to take lower rents than they can afford to take—and again I am talking of humble people—in order to bring rents down, the effect would be that the assessable value of the premises would also come down. There is no escape from that; and if the assessable value comes down you will get less money from the rates. If it goes on for any prolonged time it must have an effect on properties in the neighbourhood. You cannot let one house in a road at a much reduced rent without making some change in the rest of the houses. Is there going to be any advantage to the people who live in these houses? I am shocked at the disparity between rent and income which runny people are forced to pay, but if this result follows you are going to get a decline in the total assessable value of the county of London. I am not sure that we have not reached a peak point with regard to the assessments in the county of London. If the assessment value for the county of London is reduced by 1½per cent., it will wipe out the figure of £300,000, which is supposed to be derived from this new impost on the ratepayers of London.
The Measure has been brought forward as a means of making a fairer redistribution of the incidence of local taxation in London, and I have attempted to show that it will cause injury to people whose houses are let, and that they will not get the advantages which it has been suggested they will derive. If the total amount of the extra rates were spread over the rest of the county—assuming that all the voids were filled up and that assessment values did not decline—I understand that a figure of 6d. might be expected as the total benefit to be derived on the rates spread over the whole of the county. It is proposed to take one-quarter of that, 1½d., and, on the basis that everything goes on as before—that must be the basis—you are again brought back to the figure of £300,000

as the amount which is going to be obtained from the proposal. That is the main point, and I shall be interested to hear the arguments of those who support the Bill with regard to the benefits to the small owner of small property in London. If it is suggested that the small owner is going to benefit, that he will get his rates reduced, a great many of them will have their incomes reduced as well. If the value of property is reduced it will affect not only taxation for local purposes in the county of London but also national taxation in the shape of Death Duties and Schedule A Income Tax, and it might be—again I think this is a matter upon which we might have expected some statement from the promoters—that you will merely transfer £300,000 into the coffers of the London County Council and at the same time extract another £300,000 by decreased returns so far as the Exchequer is concerned.
There is another point. I have gone on the basis that the London County Council is the rating authority. The rates differ in each of the Metropolitan boroughs. The amount of voids differ in each borough; the amount which one borough suffers in loss by reason of voids is much greater than another. When this matter was discussed in 1925 on an Amendment in Committee on the Rating and Valuation Bill of that year, it was pointed out that there were at that time just under 20,000 empty houses in London. I am dealing now with houses—not with hereditaments. The interesting thing is that these empty houses were not in the poorest parts of London but chiefly in parts where there were very large houses which, owing to the change in economic and social conditions, were no longer able to be let. They were the type of houses in which people would not live because they could not afford to do so, or because they did not want them, or because the houses were old-fashioned. In the course of that Debate the late Mr. Scurr, who knew a great deal about the social conditions in London, said:
These empty houses in London are 19,685. They are not in the poorest portions of London, and it is not the poorest portions of London that are going to benefit by this reform.
I suggest that the figure of 25 per cent. is grossly excessive in any view of the


case. The total amount of rates in London—I am taking the last figure that I recollect—is 11s. 7d. in the £. It has been suggested that empty houses have the benefit of certain services, and certain figures which have been circulated show that with regard to the London Fire Brigade, street lighting, sewers, paving and the like, these services cost about 3s. 1d. in the £, or 27 per cent. of the total rates that are levied. Is it to be contended that practically the full amount of these services are of advantage to empty houses? After all, the object of a rate is to obtain a fund for the benefit of the people who live in the rating area, not for the benefit of a row of houses. Take the position of the Fire Brigade. Empty houses are usually covered by insurance—certainly the mortgagee sees to this. The Fire Brigade, as to 14 per cent. of its expenses, is made a contribution by the fire offices, and the fire offices, therefore, insure both empty houses and full houses. It would be interesting to know whether that matter has been taken into account in connection with the figure in respect of the Fire Brigade.
Take another matter—new houses—by which I mean houses erected since the Metropolitan Management Act, 1855. In most cases the sewering, paving, and laying out of the streets and lighting to some extent, has been done and to some extent paid for by the people who own the houses in the particular street. The burden of making up the roads is already a very heavy one on a great many people. In those circumstances is it just, when estimating how much should be charged on an empty house, to take the total value of the full service with regard to the maintenance of sewers, lighting, paving and so on? I venture to submit that this is a matter which has obviously not been taken into account. I can find no trace of it in the statement by the promoters, in the debates of the London County Council or in the announcements that have been made.
I will now deal with another fact. Some figures were given in the London County Council the other day in connection with the total number of visits paid to empty houses, as compared with occupied houses, by the Fire Brigade, and those figures are very astonishing. I will quote from the figures for 1934, because the figures for that year appear to be

least favourable to the view I am putting forward, and no one will be able to contend that I am putting the case too high. In 1934 the total number of attendances of the Fire Brigade war 4,609 and of those only 97 were in respect of empty properties. In those circumstances, is it just to say, "The Fire Brigade rate is included in this, and we will charge the whole of it against the empty premises in order to justify the 25 per cent.?"
The fact is that these matters have not been fully investigated. In my respectful opinion, it is no answer to come to the House and say. "Here is a new proposal; we are going to have something quite different from the remainder of the country," and not give the House an opportunity of obtaining evidence and submitting it to a committee. I do not suggest for a moment that there may not be some small service which the community renders to an owner whose house is empty for some time, but to put the value of that service at 25 per cent. is indeed to put it at a figure which, I suggest, is beyond all reason. I will not present calculations of my own to the House, but I have seen the figure put as low as 5 per cent., and, in the case of individuals who are more optimistic from the point of view of the opposition to this Bill, as low as 1 per cent. In any case, I submit that there is no justification whatever for putting the figure as high as 25 per cent.
It has been said that it is too late to oppose a reform of this sort, because Scotland and the City of London have it. The City of London is not a. comparable case at all. In the City of London the tax was imposed immediately after the Great Fire, and it is the result of long history. All the main big people who own property in the City of London know quite well what is the situation, and their share of the general rate, which is a small one within the City of London, is 1s. 0½d in the pound. Consequently, the City of London is in a totally different class, and when its history is examined it does not bear out the claims which are made that it should be treated as a piece of evidence in support of the present Bill.
With regard to the position in Scotland, I know nothing except that which I have learned by attending a few Scottish Debates in this House. Only a few days ago we had a discussion with regard to Scottish rating, and I heard it stated


over and over again that many of the difficulties which arise in Scotland in connection with housing matters are due to the anomalous rating system which exists in that country. [An HON. MEMBER: "Nonsense !"] I repeat that I know nothing of these matters myself, and my knowledge is limited to statements I have heard in this House over and over again. Is there any hon. Member on the chief Opposition Benches who is satisfied with the housing position in Scotland? In the Debate on Scottish rating one hon. Member said that on a comparable house a man in Glasgow would have to charge £20 in order to obtain what would be £14 a year rent in this country. [An HON. MEMBER: "In Edinburgh as well?"] I do not know that. I assume that those statements are well founded. If they are correct, I am bound to say that the argument that I should look at the rating system in Scotland in order that I may be persuaded to fasten it upon the County of London, where I have lived all my working life, where I reside and where I am a ratepayer, does not convince me.
For these various reasons, which I have tried to express as compactly as I could, I venture to submit that this Bill should not be given a Second Reading, and should not be dealt with upstairs. I submit that if the principle is a good one—and at the moment there seem to be most cogent arguments against it—it should be dealt with in a Government Bill in order that we may have evidence from the whole country with a view to seeing why we should make this change. I am not enamoured of the argument that because our rating system has followed one particular line since the days of Queen Elizabeth, we are to be afraid of looking at any conceivable amendment. We shall not make much progress if that sort of argument is followed. I venture to suggest, however, that there is no good reason for this particular Bill and that both in its details and in its principles it is wrong. Accordingly, I invite the House not to give it a Second Reading.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. HARVEY: I beg to second the Amendment.
I shall not attempt to emulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Croom-Johnson), who has covered the ground remarkably well,

but I should like to explain my position on this Bill. I take no political interest whatever in the affairs of the London County Council or in local affairs at all. I think I have shown that, in connection with various measures which have been brought up from time to time by the London County Council and particularly the Waterloo Bridge proposal which was before this House on three occasions. In each case, without consideration for the colour of the proposers, I strongly supported the proposals and I think the House was wrong when it voted against those proposals. But this Bill is an entirely different proposition. We are now-faced with a business proposition and, regarding it as such, I take exception to the attitude of the London County Council on this Measure.
Rating in London and rating generally has always been a charge on the occupier, be he tenant or beneficial owner and not on the property itself. That has been the general principle in the past. As my hon. and learned Friend has said when rates are calculated at 11s. 6d. in the pound the service which the London County Council renders is supposed to represent 3s. 1d. I agree that the service accorded to an owner of unoccupied property is not anything like the amount indicated in the Bill. I rather agree that there may be ground for the contention that such an owner is liable for something but that something ought to be defined, not by the London County Council but by the Government and at the proper time. In my own borough of Lambeth, a typical London borough, during the recent election, pamphlets were circulated showing that the loss of rates in the borough was £18;000 a year. That happens to be the highest it has ever been and the London County Council supposed that the loss to them amounted to £4,500. But that figure included property which could not be let, property which was under notice for demolition and property which could not, in any circumstances, produce the rate which, it was said, ought to be produced by it.
I understand that those in favour of the Measure are bringing up the special case of Scotland in support of their claim. We know from the Debate in this House on 12th February last that there is no case, as far as Scotland is concerned, which cannot be adequately answered.


There is not the slightest doubt that tremendous dissatisfaction exists in Scotland with the rating principles wihich are adopted there and that people there want to be put and have consistently asked to be put on the same system as England. The case of the City Corporation in London has also been mentioned. As has been pointed out it was in 1667 that this particular rate was introduced in the form of a tax. It was eventually merged in the City rates. It has now become one-half of the general rate or one shilling in the pound equal to one-ninth of the total rates as against the proposal of the London County Council in this Bill of 25 per cent.
Possibly an argument will be used with regard to what took place in Committee in 1925 on the Rating and Valuation Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer then rejected a proposal of the London County Council for the inclusion of unoccupied hereditaments. He did so because he said it would interfere with the development of building. It is to be remembered that 1925 when that proposal was made was very different from 1936. It was before the great depression and before the American slump. It was a time when the supply of houses and properties generally was not equal to the demand. To-day the position is different. The demand is being met largely by private initiative and enterprise and this Bill would have the effect of curbing that initiative and enterprise which has brought this country up to a much better level in this respect than Scotland. In connection with the Scottish comparison I would point out that in Scotland six houses are being built by corporations to each one built by private enterprise but in England a greater number of houses is being built by private enterprise than by public authorities. That is an argument against the Bill because it shows that enterprise, initiative and speculation will not be indulged in if we pass Measures such as this. The Liberal Land Committee in one of their reports made the remark:
To levy any higher rate than one penny on empty houses might indirectly have a detrimental effect upon the supply of capital for building.
There is no question about the fact that in Scotland it has had a detrimental

effect and I cannot see any argument in favour of the Bill which can be advanced on the Scottish case. I look upon the Bill as something approaching a capital levy. I look upon it as a curb on enterprise and a means of upsetting mortgage values. My hon. and learned Friend indicated that he was not interested in property and speaking for myself I do not want it to be thought that I am interested in property. I have had very little interest in property, and it would not make very much difference to me whatever happened. That is speaking quite personally, but I feel that this is an entirely unjust matter, and I would like to give a little case that came before my notice the other day, as an illustration of what might and perhaps would happen under this Bill.
A certain property that I know of in the West End of London was let at £800 a year, and the tenant went bankrupt. It was very difficult to get possession. The property was supposed to be worth from £600 to £650 a year of anybody's money, but it was not possible to get that. It was eventually let, for the purpose of letting it, as the promoters of this Bill suggest, at a sum of £200 a year, on a three years lease. Then came the local council and said, "Whatever you like to do with the rent is no business of ours. The value of this property for rating purposes is £410 gross." That is, roughly speaking, about £350 net, and on that, with the rate at 12s. in the pound, it is easily calculable how much the man has to pay in rates. Then also comes the question of Schedule A, and that is always based as a minimum on the rating assessment. The rating surveyor does not bind himself to the rating assessment. It may be more, but at least it is no less, and therefore the tenant who was being obliged to let the property for the purpose of keeping it let, had to pay on £350 net, at 12s. in the pound, and he also had to pay Schedule A, and he could only deduct the proportion of the £200 rent that he paid under Schedule A from the landlord.
If that rent were taken as the enforced letting rent, I want to ask the promoters of the Bill, What is a reasonable rate to pay if the landlord is going to forgo some of his rent to keep his property let? You cannot in all fairness maintain the old rateable value. Therefore, it must happen that the assessment will come


down, and the assessments in that particular district would all have to come down, because corresponding adjoining properties would have a grievance, and a very legitimate grievance, because one property had got special favours. Therefore, the poundage of the whole district would go up.
I maintain that if this Bill were brought into operation, for a little while, especially during the period of the quinquennium, there would be an increase, because it would operate quite satisfactorily, from the promoters' point of view, probably for a year. It might operate for a little more, but it would be bound to bring assessments down. It would be bound to make all the difference in the world to the assessments of the various districts in London, and remember those districts for rating purposes vary from 9s. 9d. in the City to 26s. in some of the outlying districts. Therefore, the quarter rate which our friends are proposing to charge would become a very serious matter when the rates amount to a considerable sum. But when assessments come down, the poundage will have to go up, and I believe the promoters of the Bill know perfectly well that in operation, and after very little time, they could get nothing out of it to equal the trouble and the dislocation which they are proposing to impose by this Bill.
To take another point, landlords are being accused of holding up property for the purposes of getting higher rents. What happened in the days immediately after the War I do not know, but I imagine that there was some justification for that statement at that time. To-day there is not the slightest justification for such a statement. I consider that a decent landlord to-day is suffering a great enough misfortune in having empty property on his hands, without being charged a quarter of the regulation rate of the district. I might also mention the questions of building finance and of mortgages, and, knowing a little about building society business and the tremendous amount of money there is invested by the building societies in mortgages, which amounts to something like £600,000,000 to-day, it becomes a very serious question when you begin to disturb those mortgages by reason of an attack on what I call thrift and the savings of individuals who have invested their money in property.
The Mover of this Amendment has referred to difficulty in the cost of collection. The promoters of the Bill know very well that when they begin to try to collect the rates from the owners of property, they may be joint owners and they may be very difficult to get at, and if the property is going to remain indefinitely unoccupied, I suppose it means something in the nature of confiscation. Whether they mean that or not, I do not know. Perhaps we shall hear in the course of the Debate. Without making a great deal of my feelings in regard to this Bill, I would say that I think it is a bad Bill. I do not like mentioning this, but it has struck me for some time that there may be something in the promoters' idea in regard to it that the expenditure of the London County Council is rising. I am not making any comment about it beyond the fact that it is rising, but when you get a rising expenditure and you are comparing that with what is inclined to be a declining expenditure somewhere else, it becomes a little bit ridiculous to make this comparison which they do make.
Another point that has struck me in regard to this matter is this: I do not know whether I am treading on the corns of my Friend if he will allow me to call him that, the leader of the London County Council, whom I have known for some considerable time, but it has struck me —it may be my own personal opinion, and I am voicing it for what it is worth—that the London County Council have an election coming next year, and I thought perhaps there might be something in the propaganda with regard to that election. I am influenced in saying that by a report which appeared in la newspaper yesterday, in which it was said that the Division Lists of to-night's Division would be carefully scrutinised. I do not mind that, because if I have a conviction that a thing is right I do it, and it does not make any difference to me what threats are used in regard to elections. To use a colloquial expression, they are like water on a duck's back. Generally speaking, this Bill is illogical and unjust and, I would add, it is unnecessarily punitive. I think that I have expressed myself sufficiently to show that I am conscientiously opposed to the Bill, and that I am not opposing it from any political motives.

8.46 p.m.

Mr. G. STRAUSS: We have heard at considerable length, about which I do not complain, arguments from hon. Gentlemen opposite that this Bill, which the London County Council is bringing forward, should not be proceeded with. They have voiced in the House in a very fair manner most of the criticism which has been the subject of an intensive campaign throughout the country against the Bill, and they have suggested, particularly the hon. Member who spoke last, that there are all sorts of terrible things behind the Bill which do not appear on the surface. The hon. Member for Kennington (Mr. Harvey) suggested that it was a first step towards confiscation, and I think that the idea has generally been put abroad that this proposal is a novel one, hastily conceived and quite revolutionary. I want to explain to the House that this Measure, far from being that, is a simple proposal for bringing a measure of social justice into the rating system of London, that it goes not one step beyond that, and that the arguments which have been put forward against it outside the House and inside are ill-founded and grossly exaggerated. Much of the argument put forward, particularly outside the House, has been unquestionably political. I do hope that the House will consider the matter this evening entirely on the merits of the proposal, quite apart, from other prejudices, because I believe that if the House considers it on the 'merits alone it will give the Bill a Second Reading and allow the details to be considered in Committee upstairs.
What is this villainous proposal—villainous in the view of the hon. Member who seconded the Amendment? It is simply that empty property to-day receives very considerable service from the local authorities; the general body of ratepayers provide to the owners of empty property considerable and invaluable services for which they do not get paid. The services have already been mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Croom-Johnson). They are the obvious services, such as police protection, which in some respects is more important in the case of empty property than in the case of occupied property. There is fire protection, and may I here assure the hon.

and learned Gentleman that the figure given in the calculations is the net cost of the fire brigade apart from contributions, which are voluntary, from the insurance companies. There are, too, lighting, highway and main and local drainage services. All these confer direct benefit on the owner of empty property, and when the hon. and learned Gentleman argues that the 25 per cent. which these services roughly represent is really more than the owner of the property should pay, and is more than the services he receives, may. I put this to him?
Other services carried out by the local authority also benefit the owner of empty property indirectly to a considerable extent. There is, for example, the poor rate. Large sums are paid by the local authority in poor relief, and if they were suddenly stopped, I suggest that the result would be so anarchic and society would be so severely affected, that the value of all property, empty and full, would be thereby lessened. Consequently, the indirect services such as the poor rate contribute to keeping up in value empty as well as occupied property. The figure of 25 per cent. is, therefore, very fair in all the circumstances. It might be argued and proved in Committee upstairs that the figure should be less by 5 per cent. or more, but as a general statement I do not think one could put a fairer figure down than 25 per cent. I suggest that the argument that the owner of empty property who is receiving direct and indirect benefit from the community should pay the community for that service is really unanswerable. It is true that all sorts of reasons, which are ill-founded but have been put forward with great ingenuity by the hon. and learned Member, have been advanced against it. I want to deal as fairly as I can with those arguments. The first is that this proposal has not been carefully examined and that it is leading, as the hon. Member for Kennington said, to confiscation, or, as has been said by an hon. Member outside the House, it is a direct attack on private enterprise. I would remind the House that this has been the subject of careful consideration in the past. The Royal Commission which sat in 1899 came to this conclusion after careful examination:
We think it would be fair if some charge were made in respect of unoccupied


properties which, undoubtedly, receives some benefit from public expenditure. But, at the same time, there would be hardship if the full burden of rates were imposed in such cases. We think the equity of the case would be met by requiring the owners to pay a portion of the rates in respect of the unoccupied hereditaments.
Further than that, quite recently the London County Council, not with the present majority, but when it had a Conservative majority, passed a resolution in favour of this principle. In 1923 a resolution was passed to this effect:
That subject to further consideration of points of detail, more particularly in regard to the exemption of properties from 'empty rate' in certain circumstances, the Council is of opinion that it is desirable that legislation should be promoted by His Majesty's Government to provide that the owners of empty properties should be required to pay rates thereon to the extent of one-quarter of the rates which would he payable ii the premises were occupied; and that the Minister of Health be informed accordingly.
If this proposal be one of confiscation, the friends of hon. Gentlemen opposite were just as much in favour of it as we are. I think that proves that that argument is ridiculous. Moreover, when in 1925 the Rating and Valuation Bill was discussed in this House the County Council took steps to submit an Amendment to provide that unoccupied properties should be made rateable at one-fourth the average rate. So this proposal is not a revolutionary one. It does not even start with the present majority at County Hall. It started as far back as 1899, and was confirmed by the late Council by a unanimous vote: Then it is suggested that this proposal is something quite new in the history of rating in this country. That statement was even made in a circular sent to all Members by the Chartered Surveyors' Institution, who really ought to know better. They say in paragraph 11:
The proposal, moreover, introduces the principle that rates are a tax on property in respect of the ownership of property, a principle wholly different from that which has governed the law of rating in England since 1601.
When precedents are sought in this House hon. Members frequently go back to the time of Elizabeth, but here one can go back even farther. In Henry the Eighth's Statute of Sewers there is a provision that the incidence of the cost should fall on all property, whether occupied or un-occupied. Indeed, it was a general rule

until recently that owners of unoccupied premises should pay their share of the services they received. I do not think it is always essential to show a precedent when a case is brought forward. There are many things we should like to see done which have no precedent, but in this case we happen to be reinforced by a large number of excellent precedents. In London, until the passing of the Metropolitan Management Act, 1855, it was the general custom, under the various Acts which governed the administration of London, to rate property whether it was occupied or unoccupied. In the City of London up to 1667 the whole rate fell on unoccupied property as well as occupied, and after 1765 unoccupied property had to bear half the general rate. But there is a more recent precedent for this principle which some hon. Members opposite think so obnoxious. In 1930 the Land Drainage Act was passed, and that specifically orders that that part of the cost of land drainage which falls on the owner of property should fall on him whether the property is occupied or unoccupied. When it can be shown that this principle was in force in the time of Henry VIII and was passed again by this House in 1930, the argument that this proposal upsets all our ideas about rating has no force whatsoever.
Again, it is argued that it would be wrong to have a rating system for London which would be different from the rating in other parts of the country. There might be some force in that contention were it not for the fact that the law of assessment for rating in London is already different from that for other parts of the country. London has different legislation in regard to many matters. It has its own public health legislation. Scotland has already been quoted, and the principle is in force there to the extent of making unoccupied property pay 50 per cent., double the amount proposed under this Bill. Under the Dublin Corporation Act, 1890, unoccupied property in Dublin was made to bear a rate not less than 33 per cent. of the rate borne by occupied property; and so excellent, apparently, was that provision found to work that Mr. de Valera has recently increased the rate on unoccupied property to between 50 and 100 per cent., according to the special circumstances of the particular properties.
It has also been argued by hon. Members opposite that this proposal would stop building. I really cannot take that argument very seriously. It was coupled, I think, with the argument that values of all house property would fall, and I suggest that those two arguments cancel one another out, because if all house building stops then the values of existing property will not fall.
Let me give a concrete case to show that the proposed incidence of taxation on empty property is nothing like so serious as has been suggested and would not stop a single person from building a house. Take a house of which the gross value is £40. The rateable value would be £28 and assuming the rates were 10s. in the £ the sum which the owner would have to pay when it was unoccupied would be £3 10s. per annum. Moreover, he would only have to start paying six months after the house had entered the valuation list, not six months after it had been built. When the owner of property has to pay other charges which go on continuously whether the property is occupied or unoccupied—mortgage interest, ground rent, insurance and so on—is it seriously suggested that this payment of £3 10s. per annum, to start six months after the property is in the valuation list, would prevent a single builder from putting up houses? The case has only to be stated in order to be confuted. Then it has been said there would be a big fall in the values of house property if this Bill passed. I do not see why that should be so. In the city of London, in Dublin, in Scotland, where this principle has been in operation, there has been no fall in the value of property.

Lieut. - Colonel Sir CHARLES MacANDREW: Did I understand the hon. Member to say there had been no fall in the values of property in Scotland?

Mr. STRAUSS: No fall in the value of property in Scotland because of this principle of rating empty property; and, indeed, there has been no greater fall in Scotland than there has been in England.

Sir ROBERT HORNE: Oh, undoubtedly. You cannot get away from the figures.

Mr. STRAUSS: Hon. Members apparently think differently on this matter.

Sir R. HORNE: There is no question about it at all. There has been a far larger fall in the value of property in Scotland than in England. The facts are remarkable.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: On a point of Order. The fall in the value of property—[ Interruption.]

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER (Sir Dennis Herbert): Is the hon. Member rising to a point of Order?

Mr. MACLEAN: Yes.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Then will he please address it to me?

Mr. MACLEAN: I want to draw your attention to the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne). He is not accurate in his statement that the fall in the value of property in Scotland is due to what he says.

HON. MEMBERS: Order!

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I must rule quite definitely against the hon. Member that this is not a point of Order and attempts at interruptions of this kind, as points of Order when they are not, are most improper. It is not a point of Order; it is a point of Debate.

Mr. MACLEAN: May I ask you this, as a point of Order? Is an inaccurate interruption made by a Member, even when an hon. Member gave way, not improper also?

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: It is not a question of accuracy or inaccuracy; it is a question of order.

Mr. KENNEDY: May I ask you if you will apply your Ruling impartially to both sides of the House?

HON. MEMBERS: Oh! and Withdraw!

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: Mr. Strauss.

Mr. STRAUSS: The point I was making is that there has been no fall in value, as the result of the principle being in operation in those areas. There has been a fall in Scotland owing to other reasons; for instance, industry moving South. I do not think anyone would hold that this has been the reason why there has been such opposition to the proposal which has been put forward. Common sense shows that the proposal is a desirable one, and would be beneficial to all localities.
The reason why opposition has been put forward is, I think, that property owners are almost invariably frightened of any change in the system of rating or taxation which applies to their property. They always see behind it something dreadful or sinister, as the hon. Member for Kennington (Mr. Harvey) has seen something sinister behind the present proposal. There is nothing sinister behind it. The proposal is so simple; it is equitable and it is plainly just that the owner of empty property should pay for the services he should receive. It is impossible to prove that the proposal will have the serious effect on house-building that has been suggested this evening. I have done my best to show that such arguments are faulty, and I ask the House to consider the matter on the basis not of the propaganda that has been put forward outside or on the basis of party feeling, but on the merits of the proposal. I am convinced that if hon. Members will consider the proposal on its merits alone, they will give it a Second Reading, allowing the details, many of which are difficult and complicated, to be thrashed out in Committee.
The hon. Gentlemen who moved and seconded the rejection did not give full credit to the number of exemptions which are contained in the Bill, and which will prevent the hardships which it has been suggested might arise. A very important exemption—I might better call it a provision—has not been mentioned at all. It is that where the owner of an unoccupied property is unable, for one reason or another, to pay his empty rate, the local authority can ask the first tenant who occupies that tenancy to pay the rent to the local authority. That will prevent hardship. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laugh at that proposal, but it is in force to-day in the City of London. I ask the House to give the Measure a Second Reading and to consider it on its merits alone, when I feel sure they will desire not to hinder but to help the London County Council in its endeavour to apply to the citizens of London this long overdue and very desirable Measure of social reform.

9.10 p.m.

Mr. KEELING: I rise for the first time to address this House, and I know I can rely on the traditional kindness and indulgence of my brother Members

—and the one sister Member whom I see present. Although I do not represent any London constituency I am a member of the Westminster City Council, and I have been asked by that Corporation, and by eight other Metropolitan boroughs who have petitioned against the Bill, to represent their view. Beside those nine councils, there are two others who have received the Bill without enthusiasm, although they have not petitioned against it. I may draw the attention of the House to the fact that those 11 councils collect among them more than half the rates of London. The London County Council does not collect rates; its more agreeable task is to spend two-thirds of the rates which are collected by the borough councils.
Although we are opposing the Bill, we do so with regret, because the relations between the borough councils and the London County Council have of recent years become increasingly friendly, and not least during the last two years, when Labour has been in power on the London County Council. Time was when this was not so. The borough councils and the London County Council used to quarrel, sometimes rather hotly, and almost on every subject, but they have realised that "when the powerful disagree the humble suffer," and by means of consultation and good will they now, in most cases, come to friendly agreement. We trust that this case will not break those friendly relations. I go further and venture to hope that when the London County Council have heard the arguments against the Bill they will come to realise that they and the people of London will not suffer, but will rather gain, if this Bill be thrown out.
Having said that, I must say quite baldly that I regard the Bill as thoroughly bad. I do so entirely on its merits. I have not had any suspicion, as the hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. G. Strauss) suggested we might have, that there is something behind the Bill. I judge it entirely as I read it. Three reasons have been advanced by the hon. Member for North Lambeth for the Bill. The first is that because empty properties benefit from certain services they ought to pay for them. The five services are the police, the fire brigade, the lighting of the streets, the paving of the streets and the drains, and because those five services cost between them


one-quarter of all the rate collected, it is suggested that the rate imposed on empty properties should be one-quarter. In other words the Bill assumes that an empty property derives the same benefit from those five services as does an occupied property. That seems an absurd assumption. The hon. Member for North Lambeth said that empty properties, also benefit from the poor rate. Perhaps some hon. Member who follows me will explain how an empty house benefits from the poor rate. I cannot understand that.
It is also said that the levying of this rate on empty premises will ease the burden on occupied premises. It has already been pointed out that, on an optimistic calculation, the yield of this quarter-rate on empty premises will only amount to about £200,000 or £250,000; and that is only three-fourths of one per cent. of all the rates collected in London. In other words, the occupiers of occupied premises at present pay 100 per cent. of the rates, and if this quarter-rate on empty premises realises the most optimistic expectations the occupiers will in future still have to pay 99¼ per cent. What, then, becomes of the argument that the rating of empty premises is going to ease the burden on occupied premises? The burden on individual owners of empty premises will, under this Bill, be severe, but the relief to the occupiers of occupied premises will be absolutely negligible.
I would make this further point: There is no practical injustice in the present system. Most premises become empty sooner or later, and when a house or an office or a factory becomes empty the owner of it gets his recompense, in exemption from rates under the present system, for the slight extra burden which he bore when the premises were occupied. This point was mentioned by the Committee on Local Taxation appointed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), which reported in 1914, and I should like to read just a few words from what they said:
We doubt whether the present system in relation to unoccupied houses really produces much hardship as between ratepayers. If A's house is unoccupied for this half-year and no rates are payable, B's rate burden is slightly increased. In the next

half-year the case may be reversed, and in the long run matters Work out, probably, with a fair degree of equality.
I may point out that this Committee sat at a considerably later date than the Royal Commission on which the hon. Member for North Lambeth relied. I turned up the Royal Commission's Report in the Library, and the pages were quite yellow with age. It also sat at a date considerably subsequent to the reign of Henry VIII, on which the hon. Member also relied. The hon. Member for North Lambeth made the surprising remark that until recently the rating of empty property was common in this country. I challenge him or any other hon. Member opposite to produce authority for that statement. He referred to the system of rating for land drainage which was introduced quite recently, but that, of course, is not really the same question. The drainage rate is directly beneficial to the particular land on which the rate is imposed.
So much for the twin arguments that empty properties ought to pay because they benefit, and that the Bill will ease the burden on occupied premises. I come now to certain positive objections, and I suggest that the effect of this Bill will be serious, and even disastrous. Like my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Croom-Johnson), I am not a property owner. I do not own a single stone or brick, either in London or in any part of the country; I have not even purchased any part of the discarded masonry of the Palace of Westminster. It is not in the interests of property owners that I am opposing this Bill, but because I believe that it will hit industry and will certainly increase unemployment. The obligation to pay rates on empty properties will, I suggest, undoubtedly discourage building. We have the remarkable fact—the rating of empty properties in Scotland has been mentioned, but I do not think this figure has been mentioned—that since the War the number of working-class houses in Scotland built by private enterprise has only been one-fifth, in proportion to the population, of the number which has been built in England. And it is not only the building of working-class houses that will suffer. Big offices and flats in London take at least three years to let,


and the exemption for six months provided by the Bill is not at all adequate.
We hear a good deal on both sides of the House about the need for industrial reorganisation. Industrial reorganisation must take, usually, one of two forms. It either means rationalisation, which involves the closing of redundant factories, or it means that a manufacturer scraps his old plant and old factory and moves to a new one. In either case the rating of the empty property which he will have to leave or discard will surely make him think twice before he builds a new factory or goes in for that rationalisation process.
We have been told that the rating of empty premises obtains in Scotland, but, like my hon. and learned Friend, I listened very carefully to the Debate on the Scottish rating system, and not only did I not hear one single voice raised in favour of the rating of empty property in Scotland, but I heard a good many complaints about it. [An HON. MEMBER: "From which side?"] I heard complaints from both sides about the rating of empty property in Scotland. The Bill proposes to fasten on London the very system about which there are so many complaints in Scotland. Is it possible that the London County Council, by introducing this system into London, seeks to discourage the migration of Scotsmen to London? I certainly have no such desire, and, even if I had, I think that the price is too high.
Just one word about the City of London. As we have already been told, the rating of empty property obtains in the City of London, and has obtained since the time after the Great Fire, when the City Fathers had obviously to rate empty property, because there was no other property that they could tax. But the rate imposed on empty property in the City of London is only one-ninth, and that seems to me to be a very poor argument for imposing a quarter-rate on the rest of London. The City of London has been left out of this Bill, and it seems to me to be a most remarkable omission. It is perfectly true that the City of London has its own police force, but it occupies much the same position vis-à-vis the London County Council which the Metropolitan borough

councils occupy. It has the services of the London County Council's fire brigade; it has the services of the London County Council's drainage system; and it seems to me to be an extraordinary injustice that, while the people of the rich City of London only pay a one-ninth rate on their empty properties, yet, if this Bill were passed, the people of the comparatively poor borough of Lambeth, which the hon. Member opposite represents, would have to pay a quarter-rate. Finally, I suggest that this Bill violates the elementary principle well known in this country that there should be no taxation without representation. Unlike Scotland, England does not give a municipal vote to property owners as such, and I want to ask the London County Council whether, if this Bill goes through, they are going to propose that property owners should be put on the municipal register. If so, I think that they may be surprised at the result. There are a good many other defects in this Bill, but other hon. Members want to speak, and therefore I am going to leave them to deal with those points and so help to dig the grave which I think this Bill deserves.

9.27 p.m.

Mr. LANSBURY: I wish to support this Bill, not because I think it is a very courageous or big Measure. I think that it is a very small Measure, but, like so many other proposals brought forward in this House, it is a step in the right direction. Before I pass on I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling), although I disagree with his conclusions. If he will allow me to say so, I think that by his speech he has made us all realise that he understands very thoroughly the question which we are discussing to-night. I would like to say to him that I am extremely sorry that the Westminister City Council has grown weary in well doing. That council some years ago, after the Poplar councillors had gone to prison, through its clerk and its chairman, took the lead in voluntarily taking over the cost of Poor Law relief in London to a very large extent. I think that we should not have got through with the proposals which eventuated in the cost of the poor being transferred from the localities to the centre had not Westminster on the day we met taken the lead, and I am very much surprised to find that they


have joined in a sort of combination, relatively speaking a small one, to try to stop this Bill getting through, because the same arguments as were used to bring the Westminster Council to the position of taking the lead apply equally to this proposal to-night.
What is the situation? It is not that the London County Council benefits. That is to say, they do not suffer the obloquy of levying the rates. The rates are levied in London by the borough councils, and it is the poorer districts that feel this burden much more than any other portions of London. In the borough of Poplar, part of which I represent, we lose something like £39,000 to £40,000 a year, partly by compounding, partly by empty properties, and to a small extent by irrecoverable arrears. When the London County Council levy their precept on us they levy it on our rateable value, not on what we can collect, not on the total that comes into the bank from the ratepayers. This proposal would make probably somewhere about a twopenny rate difference to us in Poplar. To Westminster and the City of London twopence in the pound is not very much, but to us in Poplar it is a very considerable amount indeed and makes a considerable difference to the people who have to pay. I should have thought that the richer boroughs would not have used the kind of argument that hon. Gentlemen have been using to-night in this respect, because they must realise that if we are to stand up to the rating system in London it is quite certain that we should have this kind of relief. I should like to correct the hon. and learned Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Croom-Johnson). I do not know the circumstances under which John Scurr made the speech to which the hon. Member referred.

Mr. HERBERT MORRISON: Perhaps I can tell my right hon. Friend. Mr. Scurr was acting on behalf of the then Conservative County Council.

Mr. LANSBURY: Perhaps that was so, but I want to point out to the House that part of the statement that was put to the High Court contained a reference to the fact that at that time the loss to the ratepayers of Poplar through having to pay the central rates on the rateable value, without any deductions, amounted to somewhere between £50,000

and £60,000 a year. That was then a very considerable burden on the ratepayers. To-day that sum is reduced to something like £16,000 and it costs us a 5½d. rate. We shall get this small amount if this Bill is carried, and I should have thought that the richer boroughs would not have stood in our way. The hon. Member for Twickenham said that we shall not help forward trade and development, and so on. I think that he makes a mistake there, because I am quite certain that in any reorganisation scheme this sort of proposition would not have any weight. No one will undertake to take premises under a reorganisation scheme without being pretty sure that they are going to occupy them for at least a considerable period. This is really aimed at people who for one reason or another keep property out of occupation. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bridgwater said that no one keeps houses empty.

Mr. CROOM-JOHNSON: I do not think I said anything like that. I should not dream of making a statement as wide as that.

Mr. LANSBURY: I was going to qualify the statement. I think the hon. and learned Gentleman said there were very few people, if any, who did so. Almost alongside my own house for three or four years some very admirable properties were kept out of letting, although the borough council would have been quite willing to buy them and to turn them into dwellings for people by whom they were very much needed. I wished at that time that we had had power to levy the whole rate on the owner, but we had no power to levy anything. I am sure that if he had been obliged to pay 25 per cent. of the rates he would have let the houses. He kept them empty until he could pull them down and build some houses on the back on an entirely different plan. There may have been reasons which we knew nothing about, but we never got any reason from him at all. I can give the Minister the history of the matter, because the borough council again and again tried to deal with these properties. We have had similar properties held out for considerable periods. We had in Bow Road a great stretch of land where the property had been allowed to become dilapidated and for years it was impossible for us to


get possession because the owners were waiting for an increase in the value of the land. That also can be verified by the borough council.
An hon. Member has said that this Bill may be brought forward with a view to the election. I was elected on a local authority in Poplar in 1892 and this was one of the questions that we put in our election address. It has been a burning question ever since I knew anything about rating or rent or anything else. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bridgwater does himself less than credit when he urges as an argument against the Bill that other people will want the same thing. That seems to me to be an argument in favour of the Bill. If there are people outside who are longing to get it, I should have thought that, being a good democrat, he would want to start along the road so that eventually those who are waiting for it might point to the success of this venture and obtain the consent of Parliament to an enlargement of the scheme. One of these days the whole question of London's assessment and rating must be tackled. It is a very chaotic position altogether. I hope that some Government will take it in hand and, if it means the abolition of the borough councils, we must stand up to that, or lie down to it. I do not think it would matter very much if they were all improved off the face of the earth and the London County Council given the power to assess, to rate and to administer London.
I know that that will sound a very unpopular thing to say to many of my friends, but I think that London suffers very much indeed from not being a unified Metropolis and, when you come to deal with London's assessment system, you discover that you can only get that efficiently done from the centre. There are different methods, and different people carry through the assessments, and when you come to the rating system it is grossly unfair, as the Westminster Council recognised in 1920 or 1921, when they voluntarily bore the burden. I am certain that, if the city of London was called upon to help, the Common Council would not object, because when the committee for dealing with the unemployed was launched by Mr. Walter Long it was the city of London that first of all volunteered to levy themselves in order to ease the burden of the poorer districts.

Mr. KEELING: The City of London actually asked the London County Council to leave them out of this Bill.

Mr. LANSBURY: They had perfectly good reasons for doing so. For years they have had their own system, and apparently it has worked very well. As the hon. Member said himself, there are services which the City itself pays for throwing no burden on the rest of London. Anyhow, I am paying my tribute to the City of London for being ready to do something voluntarily, and I pay my respects to the Westminster City Council of 1920–21 for the manner in which they led the rest of the boroughs of London by championing the need of poor local authorities for relief. I cannot understand why they should want to stand in the way of our getting the very small relief which this Bill will give. I hope the House will give it a Second Reading.

9.44 p.m.

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): It may be for the convenience of the House that I should say a word or two on the point of view of the Government concerning this Bill. I welcome the statement of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken in commendation of the work of the City of London and of the Westminster City Council. I did not think I should live to hear such language from him.

Mr. LANSBURY: I do the right hon. Gentleman the courtesy of listening to him. He hardly ever does me the courtesy of listening to me. What I have said to-night I have said many times both inside and outside the House.

Sir K. WOOD: The right hon. Gentleman ought to have the freedom of the City.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Keeling) upon his very fine maiden speech. I have heard him on two occasions recently. I had the privilege of attending a meeting of the Westminster Council last week when I heard my hon. Friend speak in another capacity. I am sure that all of us who heard him this evening, in whatever part of the House we may sit, recognised that we have in my hon. Friend a great acquisition in this House, particularly as far as local government work is concerned. I congratulate him very much indeed. I


do not propose to quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman on the question of the reform of London to-night, but would only express the hope that, as far as London valuation is concerned, it may be possible for the London County Council and the borough councils to come to some agreement on the matter, because, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, I would gladly welcome something in that direction. I emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham has said, that in anything we may say tonight none of us desires to take up an attitude on behalf of the borough councils against the London County Council or vice versa. I greatly value the statement my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham made, that the good relationship between the borough councils and the London County Council has, if anything, improved recently.
As far as the abolition of the borough councils in London is concerned, I can only express the hope that the right hon. Gentleman may live long enough to see it come about. The only statement that I want to make to the House regarding this proposal—I do not propose to discuss the merits, which have been so ably dealt with by hon. Members on both sides of the House—is to remind the House that it would introduce a fundamental change into the settled system of English rating, and proposes to make that change by way of local legislation. The only statement I desire to make on behalf of the Government to-night is—I think it is obvious and it is certainly the view of His Majesty's Government—that if a change of such magnitude is to be made it should be applied to the country as a whole, and that it is not appropriate that it should be done by local legislation. The Government as at present advised have no intention of introducing such legislation, and therefore we cannot ask the House to vote for this Bill.
I do not wish to say anything concerning the details of the Measure, but I thought that it would be for the convenience of Members of the House if I expressed to them the view of the Government generally concerning this proposal.

9.49 p.m.

Mr. HOLMES: I cannot claim that I am making a maiden speech, but I ask the indulgence of the House as it is nearly 14 years since I last had the privilege of addressing it. I am rather sorry that my first speech on my return here is to be in opposition to a Bill promoted by the London County Council. I was a member of that body for nine years, and in those days we at County Hall thought that a Bill promoted by the London County Council should not be interfered with by Parliament, because the London County Council knew so much better than Parliament what was required for London. With this Bill it is a different case, because it is not a Measure that will concern London alone but one which will eventually alter the whole rating system of the country. I cannot help feeling that what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hackney (Mr. H. Morrison) had in his mind when the London County Council was deciding to promote this Bill was, that before it reached this House, there would be a General Election and that he would find himself, when the Measure reached the House, on the Front Government Bench instead of on the front Opposition Bench. But the General Election turned out differently, and the right hon. Gentleman is now trying to make new precedent in this House by introducing a Government Measure from the front Opposition Bench.
The London County Council have furnished us with a memorandum giving reasons in favour of the Bill, and their speakers—the hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. G. Strauss) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury)—have given their views upon it. The first point they made is that there will be no increase in the total amount of the rating. That may be true, but I have a shrewd suspicion that, as the administration of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hackney and his friends has caused the expenditure of the London County Council to go up considerably, and as they have to face an election in March of next year, they want to find some new form of ratepayer on whom they can put some of the burden of their increased expenditure, so that


the general rate of London will not go up so much.
The second reason that they gave why the owner of empty property should pay rates was because of the services which he receives. This point was dealt with by one or two speakers, and I will say a few words with regard to the four services mentioned by the hon. Member for North Lambeth. The police are aware that empty property cannot be burgled. It may want protection from boys throwing stones at the windows, but they never do that when the policemen are there. Empty property is not likely to catch fire. There is not an owner of empty property who wants the lighting or cleansing of streets, and as for main drainage, the only advantage the owner of empty property receives is that the rain water from the roof is taken away. Another reason given is that owners will be more likely to let their property at a lower rent. There is very little in that. To-day, if a person has an empty property, he nearly always places it in the hands of an agent, who will always advise him as to the rent he may expect to get, and as a general rule he accepts what he can get in due course. There is very little deliberate holding up for increased rents.
I turn to the other side. The best way to obtain reasonable rents is to supply an. adequate number of houses. Supply and demand come in as far as houses are concerned, as in other things. If there is a shortage of houses rents go up, and if houses are provided equal to the demand, rents are kept down. During the last few years an increased number of houses has been built in London, and elsewhere in the country. These, in the main, have been built by private enterprise, which has only been able to do this because it has been able to get the necessary money. If building companies or private individuals are unable to sell their houses, they cannot continue building because working capital is used up and there is nothing left with which to provide wages and material. During the past few years the investing public have been induced to take more interest in property. That movement has been helped by the fact that the yield from gilt-edged securities has become less and less. Beyond the investing public who have bought houses, and so assisted

builders, whether companies or individuals, the building societies have not merely lent money to individuals who have bought their own houses but have extended their policy to lending money to people to invest in a house even where that person could only put up £20, £25 or £30. That has all helped to get houses sold and to finance the people who were building them.
What will be the result if we pass this Bill? It will mean that the confidence that has gradually been built up so far as investing in house property and buying houses is concerned will be shaken. People will not be ready to invest in that way. There is nothing more important than confidence. When we hear of the flight from the £, the dollar or the franc, it means that the people of the world have lost confidence in that particular country, and very likely the people of the country itself have lost confidence. There is nothing worse than being able to say about a man that you have lost confidence in him. There is nothing worse for a man in his business than people saying that they have no confidence in him and will not give him credit. This Bill would take away the confidence of the people from investing either in buying houses for their own occupation for investing purposes or buying through building societies for the purpose of helping to build houses. Slowing up in the building of houses will mean a reduction in the amount of employment in the building industry. I do not know whether the House realises that to-day there are 234,000 more men employed in all sections of the building trade than was the case three years ago. If we have a slowing down in the building of houses, some of the 850,000 men who are at present employed in the building trade will lose their jobs.
I express my opposition to the Bill because it goes against one of the principles that has always existed in this country with regard to taxation and rating, and that is, that the broadest back should bear the biggest burden. If I may take an analogy from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he receives each year the estimates and he knows the money that he must raise and calculates his revenue, he comes to a conclusion as to the amount he must obtain from Income Tax. Then the House decides, as it has done for many years, that those


who have little or no income shall have such allowances that they pay nothing. Right up the scale, as a man's income increases he pays more. That is a principle on which we are all agreed. Why should not that be the case in regard to rating? Why should we say that while the man who has little or no income pays no Income Tax, the man who has property which is bringing him in no benefit and no income should pay rates.

10.0 p.m.

Mr. W. H. GREEN: I support the Bill. The hon. Member who opened the opposition to the Second Reading said he did so on behalf of those who would suffer if the Bill became an Act and was brought into operation. I claim to speak for the very much greater number of people who are suffering to-day because the principles embodied in the Bill are not now in operation. The London County Council have promoted the Bill, because they believe that it can be justified on many grounds. They feel that at the present time a great injustice is being done to the vast majority of ratepayers who have to pay for services from which they themselves benefit but also from which the owners of unoccupied property reap some benefit. I was sorry to hear the Minister say that he was not prepared to advise his party to support the Measure. That statement was not altogether unexpected, but some of us feel that it was a misuse of terms for him to declare that he did so because the Bill introduced a complete and fundamental change in the principle of rating. We would rather say that it introduces a new partner into rating. Rating at the present time rests upon the occupier. We say that when an occupier is no longer there a small proportion of the rates should come upon the shoulders of the owner.
We have been too modest in the Bill. I am rather inclined to quarrel with the Title of the Bill. I would have preferred the Title to have stated that it is a Bill to grant a rebate of 75 per cent. to the owners of unoccupied property. I have listened very carefully to the discussion, and I am not surprised that against the principle we advocate we have not heard a really sound argument. The bulk of the material points that have been raised would have been more appropriate to the Committee stage than to the Second Reading. There are one or

two very elementary points that have not been sufficiently dealt with. In the first place, the levying of the rate presumes that it is for the provision of certain services. Does the owner of an unoccupied hereditament gain something from those services? That has not been disputed by hon. Members opposite. It has been admitted by a number of speakers that they would agree that the owner of unoccupied property does gain something from the services provided out of public rates, but the point they have taken up seems to have been that there is no agreement as to the exact amount which that benefit would represent. The county council have tried to work out as nearly as possible on as just and as equitable a basis a; they could what that service would mean, and they have fixed it at 25 per cent. I feel that they have erred on the moderate side. Some arguments advanced by hon. Members opposite have been self-contradictory. They have cancelled out each other. We have heard that if this Measure becomes an Act and its provisions are enforced it will produce something negligible. Then why worry about it? Further, I think the same hon. Members have used the argument that the proposed imposition would be an intolerable burden on the propertied class. It is a little difficult to reconcile those statements.

Mr. KEELING: There is nothing inconsistent. The point is that the individual occupier would be relieved of less than 1 per cent. of the rates which he at present pays, whereas the individual owner of an unoccupied house would have to pay a 25 per cent. rate.

Mr. GREEN: That does not explain away the contradiction. We are told that the Bill will restrict, building. Surely if it restricts building the effect will be to appreciate values, although some hon. Members have argued that it is going to decrease values. If we could divorce this discussion from all party bias and vested interests and judge it purely on grounds of equity, the bulk of hon. Members would go into the Lobby in support of it. One would imagine from the tornado of literature which has been circulated that this was a most revolutionary proposal originating in the mind of a Socialist county council in their first term of office. Instead, we are following the lines of our predecessors and trying to implement what is, in effect, Tory policy


as far as London is concerned. We support a principle which has commended itself for half a century to the City of London, and which has not been found iniquitous and oppressive in Scotland. I am not aware of any special steps taken by Scottish Members to remove any grievance.

Sir R. HORNE: On the contrary, the most active steps have been taken to obtain changes in the law, and the present Secretary of State not very long ago gave what many people regard as a pledge to deal with this matter.

Mr. GREEN: I am not aware of any strenuous and widespread efforts in Scotland on this matter. I can well understand hon. Members desiring to remove rating altogether, and they have succeeded in wellnigh doing so in the case of certain great undertakings. The Bill has been promoted after careful thought and every effort has been made to remove all possible grievances. It deals with the ratepayer on grounds of justice and equity, and the opposition to it is selfish and anti-Socialist. I trust that even now hon. Members will realise the false attitude they are taking and will join us in the Lobby to ensure that the Bill may be thrashed out in Committee and its merits and demerits investigated thoroughly.

10.10 p.m.

Captain DOWER: We have had many arguments for and against the Bill, but the strongest argument against the Measure is, as the Minister of Health has said, that, whatever hon. Members opposite may say, it does definitely propose a fundamental alteration in the principles of rating in this country. Whatever the merits or the demerits of the proposal may be, it should be introduced in the form of a public Bill which can be argued in relation to a system of rating for the whole country, and not merely as a Bill for London, even then leaving out the City of London. Those who support the Bill say that it does not matter, because there are already considerable differences between the rating system as practised in London and in the County of London. That is so to a minor degree, but I suggest that a fundamental principle like this, that empty houses should be charged rates, is a big issue and should be discussed in relation to the whole country. Hon. Members opposite

have gone out of their way to dive back into the realms of antiquity. They love precedents, they believe in old-fashioned ideas, and they have discovered certain instances where taxation was imposed on empty property in the Gladstonian era.
One thing is absolutely certain, and that is that for many years as far as England is concerned, the principle whether property should be liable for rates or not has been based on beneficial occupation, and I am convinced that if you asked the ordinary householder in this country he would say that while he occupies the property and derives benefit from it he is liable to rates, but if he goes out, empties his home, why should he pay rates upon it? The hon. Member for North Lambeth (Mr. G. Strauss) said that there was an exception in the case of the Land Drainage Act, 1930, which put rates on empty property. The principle of that Act is entirely different. The principle of the Land Drainage Act, 1930, is that where public money is used to increase the capital value of land it is only just in those circumstances that the land should pay towards it. The only other point I want to make is this: Let there be no mistake, if the Bill receives a Second Reading, goes to Committee, and becomes the law of the land, it is not going to stop at that. It will be treated as an open invitation to borough and city councils all over England to say that, as the principle has been accepted for London, they want the powers as well. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I agree, and, therefore, why not argue it as applying to the whole country and not merely to London?
Some hon. Members have said: "What harm is the Bill going to do? It is a most innocuous Measure and will not hurt anybody." I think it is going to be extremely injurious to the building industry and to new building development. Let me give an instance. If, in addition to the risks which already have to be undertaken, the interest which has to be paid on money borrowed and the long period before there is any return on the expenditure, you charge empty property with rates, you will do building development a great deal of harm. During recent years one of the principal forms of building activity, and one which has during very difficult years employed a number of men who would otherwise have


been out of work, is the creation and erection of blocks of offices and flats. If the Bill became law it would deal a very injurious blow against this building. There is no question about that. After a block of offices had been put up it is. not a question of six months before they are let; very often it is a question of three or four years, and during that period the empty proportion of the block is often as much as 50 per cent. Now you are going to say that during the whole of that period you will charge rates upon the half that is empty. People will think twice and three times before they embark on the erection of fresh offices or blocks of flats.
Does the right hon. Member for South Hackney think that the statements he has made are likely to assist commerce? I can assure him that the building industry knows quite well that on 19th January, 1923, he said that empty properties ought to be rated at 50 per cent. Again, at Shoreditch on 25th September, 1920, he said that he would like to see empty properties rated at 100 per cent. I do think that when he answers to-night he should state what his views definitely are.

Mr. H. MORRISON: 25 per cent.

Captain DOWER: I am very pleased to hear that the right hon. Member is becoming more conservative as he remains in this House. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss questions concerning the building industry, but I do not think it is out of order for me to remind hon. Members that calculations which have been made by very big building firms have stated that of every £100 spent in building £75 goes to labour wages directly or indirectly. That is a very important item.
There is another matter with which I would like to deal. It has been stated that there are 28,000 houses empty in London, and in this connection a most enlightening article by the right hon. Member for South Hackney appeared in a popular evening newspaper last night. He drew the attention of ratepayers to this matter, and said that here was a plan to save London ratepayers £1,200,000 a year. I would like to say that I am very pleased to see that the right hon. Gentleman is considering the ratepayers and the

rate in the pound, because I was considering that the rate in the pound under his administration in London has increased.
I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman one thing. I think we are entitled to know what is going to happen to the money which is raised from the rate on empty properties. Is it to be used to reduce the rate in the pound, or is the rate in the pound to be maintained at its present level and is the right hon. Gentleman going to say that he has a heaven-sent opportunity of finding money to pay for additional expenditure which has been incurred? I think we are entitled to know that.
It has also been suggested that these 28,000 houses are empty because the owners are trying to obtain high and exorbitant rents. I do not believe that for one moment. I do not say that there are not five or six per cent. of crazy people who think they can gain money in that way, although they certainly do not, for it has been shown that if property is left empty for three months and is then let for five years, it is the equivalent of a loss of six or seven per cent. on the rent when it is eventually let. Property in London is empty on account of natural causes to a very large extent. It is empty because there has been a change of fashion and the demand for a particular type of property has gone; or it may be that there is competition in a particular kind of house; or, as is often the case, that leaseholders have stringent covenants in their leases which prevent them from developing and altering the houses and thus giving them a marketable value. I think those are the reasons for which property is empty.
I think we are entitled to know what proportion of properties hon. Members opposite would like to see empty. Full rates, I am told, would realise something like £30,000,000. On empty properties there is a loss of £1,250,000. Therefore, roughly speaking there is one property empty out of every 25 properties. I do not think that is an unreasonable proportion. If there were no properties available to meet demand a great deal of hardship would be created and rents would certainly be increased. I believe the proper maxim to go upon in this matter is that the supply should be slightly greater than the demand. We have dealt with the question of whether


increased revenue will be raised. I cannot agree that assessments will not be lower. I have had a letter from one of the principal authorities on rating in London, a leading expert of the City of London who advises on rating matters and this is what he says:
It is my opinion that the effect of a rate of 2s. 6d. in the £ on empty properties would be to bring the rents of such properties down. In such circumstances the rating authority would be bound to include such properties in the provisional list and reduce assessments and, bearing in mind decisions of the court, it naturally follows that when the net quinquennial valuation was undertaken all the rateable values would have to be scaled down in order to secure uniformity of assessments.
If the loss involved in lower assessments was not met by the revenue raised by the rating of the empty properties, how would the right hon. Gentleman opposite find the money for London County Council expenditure? Only by increasing the poundage of the rates. I have heard estimates of how much money would be obtained by these proposals. I accept the estimate of the chairman of the Finance Committee of the London County Council who said it would be something like £300,000 a year, but he also said that when reductions for exemption had been taken into account the amount would be about £200,000 a year or a little lower. If we calculate also the extra cost entailed in recovering rates—because it will not be possible to use the system of distraint to the same extent as it is used to-day—and if there is to be a loss owing to the lower assessments I do not think it is an under estimate to say that you would be very lucky if you had £100,000 a year or the equivalent of a ½d. rate.
The question for the House to decide is, whether it is worth while, for the sake of collecting an extra £100,000 a year, to put into operation a Measure which may be injurious to new building developments. In the City, where they have a 10 per cent. rate on empty houses, in 1934–35 the rates collected on occupied premises amounted to £3,600,000 and the rates collected on empty premises only amounted to £37,000 or about 1 per cent. We ought to make sure that it is worth while doing so, before we injure any industry by a Measure of this kind.
With regard to the actual provisions contained in this Bill, we are told that the proportion of 25 per cent. was

arrived at by taking services into consideration, but I do not think anyone would imagine that empty properties receive the same amount of benefit as occupied properties, yet they are charged the same amount. As far as exemptions are concerned, any practical builder or anyone who has taken part in new building development would say at once that these exemptions are not adequate. Six months are to be allowed in the case of a new building, and that is enough as far as small houses are concerned, but as far as blocks of offices and flats are concerned, it is totally inadequate. Then again only two years are allowed for the demolition of property, but any builder will tell you that it frequently takes a much longer time to clear an area than two years.
Last of all, and what I think is the most iniquitous omission of all, is that no exemption of any kind is to be allowed in the case of properties being empty when tenants wish to carry out their own decorations and repairs. Between leases tenants frequently take two or three months to put their houses in order, and during this time they will have to pay rates under this proposal. I think these exemptions would be bound to be increased in Committee, and if they were increased, it would, of course, reduce still further the very small amount of revenue calculated to be brought in if the Bill becomes law.
It has been said that our opposition is not to the principle of the Bill, but is due to the fact that there is a Socialist majority on the London County Council. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] We now know where hints of that kind come from. I can assure hon. Members that such a suggestion is utterly and completely without foundation. It is true that we are opposed to this Bill because it is a typical piece of Socialism, introducing injurious interference without any compensatory features on the other side of the account, but I can assure the House that my hon. Friends and I who are responsible for putting down the Motion for the rejection of the Bill did so in the first instance because we think it ought to have been brought forward as a public Bill, to apply to the country as a whole and not to London alone. We oppose it because we do not think the exemptions contained in it are sufficient, and we oppose it, finally, because we think the


amount of revenue, if you get any at all, will not compensate for the injury that you will do to new building development. These are our reasons for opposing this Bill, and I seriously ask hon. Members to come into the Lobby when the Division is called and defeat this Bill on its Second Reading.

10.29 p.m.

Mr. H. MORRISON: The hon. and gallant Member who has just resumed his seat betrayed a very great curiosity to know what we were going to do with this money if we got it. He wanted to know whether, if we got it, we should use it to decrease the rates, or whether we should say to ourselves, "Now we have this extra money we can spend more." I really wish the hon. and gallant Member would understand the Bill before he makes a speech about it, and I wish that other hon. Members would do the same, for repeatedly it has been assumed that the London County Council is going to get this money. The truth is that it is not going to get a penny out of it. I am assuming, of course, that the Bill is carried. We do not propose that any of this money should come to the London County Council. In so far as this produces additional municipal revenue, it will go to the Metropolitan borough councils, not to the London County Council, which demonstrates to the House what a self-sacrificing body the present London County Council is. It was particularly pleasing to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Kennington (Mr. Harvey) in this Debate. I accept at once his assurance that he personally is not animated by political considerations. I know that he stood by the council in the Waterloo Bridge controversy and was not animated by political considerations when other people were, and I appreciate it. I was additionally pleased to hear the hon. Member because he is the only London Member of Parliament who has opposed this Bill tonight.

Sir ROBERT TASKER: Another one did not have the opportunity.

Mr. MORRISON: I am sure that the House has lost a great speech by not hearing the hon. Member. Everyone who has spoken, other than the hon. Member for Kennington, was not a London Member of Parliament.

Mr. GEORGE BALFOUR: There were many in the House ready to speak if time permitted.

Mr. MORRISON: I admit that the hon. Member is always ready for anything. Every one of the names down to the Amendment for the rejection of the Bill is that of a non-London Member of Parliament. All of them, of course, were fully exercising their admitted rights as Members of this House. I only say that to explain a particular welcome to my hon. Friend the Member for Kennington for making some London voice heard in opposition to this Bill, even though in so doing he spoke neither for the County of London nor for the constituency for which he sits.

Mr. BALFOUR: There were other names on the Order Paper, but only the first ones appeared on the Paper.

Mr. MORRISON: I fully appreciate that, but it is usual for the six most important names to appear on the Paper. I have made it clear that this Bill is promoted by the London County Council but that the financial advantage will be with the Metropolitan boroughs and not the County Council. I wish, in addition, to make it plain that a clear majority of Metropolitan borough councils, not all of them associated with the Labour party, are supporters of these proposals. In there circumstances, I think it can be said that there is a substantial body of London opinion behind this Bill and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) said, we have repeatedly fought elections on this issue and it was in the programme of: the Labour party at the last County Council election, which we won. We urged it, and the House may take it that this proposal has the overwhelming support, of the people of London so far as the great majority are concerned.
The hon. Gentlemen who spoke for the Property Owners' Federation and organisations of that kind really must not confuse the Property Owners' Federation with the people of London. I know they genuinely think they are the same, but they are really wrong, and I assure hon. Members that the great bulk of the citizens of London, so far as opinions can be ascertained, are definitely in favour of the principle which is contained


in this Bill. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Kennington asked whether we brought this before the House because we wanted something on which to win the next London County Council election. Let me assure him that the next County Council election is won by us already.

Mr. HARVEY: I will answer the right hon. Gentleman in the words of the late Lord Asquith. We will "wait and see."

Mr. MORRISON: No, we do not wait and see. We act and do. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no constituency which we are more confident of holding at the next election than the constituency which he represents at the moment. The Minister of Health politely intimated the opposition of His Majesty's Government to the Bill, and although I used to be told by the hon. Member for Hampstead when I stood at that Box over there that I went much too far in indicating the views of His Majesty's then Government on private Bills before this House, the Minister to-night went as far as anybody would want him to go in indicating the clear and definite opposition of the Government to this Bill. He based his objection on the fact that this is a local Bill, whereas if the subject was to be dealt with it should be dealt with nationally. It is a curious idea of some Members that although this would be an unmixed evil if applied to London alone the objection would be removed if it were applied all over the country. So far that is the position of the Conservative party on the London County Council. They would support the application of this plan of wholesale robbery and confiscation to Great Britain as a whole, but only object to its being experimented with in the County of London.
The Minister of Health, whom I see there, not looking particularly happy, and almost as though he is a little ashamed of himself—as he ought to be—forgets that the whole history of rating legislation shows differences in practice in different parts of the country. It is the most utterly empty argument to urge that this proposal is wrong, because it is to be confined to a particular administrative area. Moreover, the Statute Book is full of special legislation for London, and nowhere more than in his own Department. Public health—special Acts for

London. Housing legislation—special provision for London. Rating and valuation—special Acts for London. Of course I understand that the right hon. Gentleman was here to-night to discharge a task, and had to say something which would be pleasing to the hon. Gentlemen who sit behind him, but he and I know that he knows that his argument was unsound.
Does the right, hon. Gentleman know what his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland has been up to? As recently as 1934, when the present Secretary of State was the holder of this office, there was an inquiry into the distribution of local rates in Scotland on the Dundee Corporation Provisional Order on 29th March, 1934, and the Members of the Committee before whom that inquiry was held were a thoroughly respectable body —Lord Meston, chairman, Lord Carnock, Mr. J. Wellwood Johnston, M.P. and Mr. J H. McKie, M.P. As far as I know that does not show a majority of dangerous revolutionaries. Power was sought by the Corporation of Dundee to levy rates on owners in respect of unoccupied property. Such rates had previously been levied in Dundee, but this was disputed and it was eventually held by the Court of Session in Lickley Brothers, Limited versus Dundee Corporation, in 1935, that this was illegal, under the Statute existing at the time the rate was imposed. Clause 12 of the Provisional Order sought powers to the Dundee Corporation to impose rates on empty property. There was opposition to it, precisely the same sort of opposition as has been offered by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House to-night. Listen to it, and if this does not sound familiar to hon. Gentlemen who have read all the communications that they have received on the subject during the last few weeks—

Captain DOWER: Including those from the promoters of the Bill.

Mr. MORRISON: The literature from the promoters of the Bill was of a very high order. The London County Council literature always is. The Clause was opposed by the Dundee Property Owners' and Factors' Association, which is the kind of organisation which is in a state of indignation about the rating system of Scotland and for whom hon. Members very efficiently and effectively


act in this House. What did they say? The petition read:
Your petitioners object to the powers sought in Clause 12, and submit that it is unjust, and would constitute a serious hardship upon owners, to be obliged to pay in respect of unlet and unoccupied lands and heritages from which no revenue is obtained. Your petitioners submit that no charge should be made by the corporation in respect of owners' rates for such period as premises are unlet and unoccupied.
You may take it from me as absolutely certain that all the arguments which were advanced by the Dundee Property Owners' and Factors' Association was on behalf of the little property owner who was about to be ruined by the Dundee Corporation, just as all the arguments used by the hon. and learned Member who moved the rejection of the Bill were based on the case of the weak, small property owner.

Mr. CROOM-JOHNSON: Certainly.

Mr. MORRISON: The hon. and learned Member said it with conviction, and he now says, "Certainly." I have no more to say. What happened to that Provisional Order afterwards? The arguments advanced for the petitioners were similar to those put forward by the Property Owners' Associations against the Bill to-day. This eminently respectable committee found that the Preamble in respect of the Clause was proved, and reported to the present Secretary of State, the right hon. colleague of the right hon. Gentleman. I admit that the Secretary of State for Scotland is technically a Liberal and that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health is technically a Conservative. No doubt there is some technical difference between them, but here is a real difference, for when that proposal was put to the Secretary of State for Scotland, all the objections which the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health has advanced to-night about local action, and Private Bills, and "It ought to be done by the Government but we are not going to do it," did not arise. The Secretary of State for Scotland confirmed the Dundee Corporation Order Confirmation Act on 12th July, 1934.

Miss HORSBRUGH: Is not the argument exactly the same, although the Secretary of State for Scotland is technically a Liberal and the Minister of Health

technically a Conservative, that there should not be, in one locality, a difference from the rest of the country? If the Order had been granted in Dundee, there would have been a different rating system for Dundee from the whole of the rest of Scotland.

Mr. MORRISON: I take it from that, that the hon. Lady joins with my hon. Friends who represent Scottish constituencies in a hearty determination to maintain the rate on empty property throughout the whole of Scotland?

Miss HORSBRUGH: rose—

Mr. MORRISON: I was brought up according to doctrines of sex equality. The analogy is close enough for me. It is a very good analogy, and indicates that the Government are once more pursuing a dual policy. The truth is that the Government are opposed to the Bill. They have invited the House in so many words to reject it. I am inviting the House to reject the advice of the Government. It may interest the Minister to know that his Parliamentary private secretary, the hon. Member for Bromley (Sir E. Campbell) was a member of the London County Council during part of the period when they passed a resolution in favour of the principle contained in the Bill.

Sir EDWARD CAMPBELL: Were I sitting on the Front Bench, I should ask for notice of that accusation. I think the right hon. Gentleman will admit that the circumstances have entirely changed. In 1923 there was a glut of houses, and now there is a shortage. While I was very sensible to vote as I did then, I should be very sensible in voting the opposite way to-night.

Mr. MORRISON: That is a new argument, which has not been heard before. I will not pursue it. I agree that there is a change in circumstances. The hon. Member sits now behind the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Health. He was not in that position in 1923. We are told that the opposition to this Bill is in the interests of the small property owner. Let us see who are the opponents of the Bill, and let us try to imagine how far they represent the average ratepayer, as distinguished from the property owners, or the small property owner. Here is a list which was published in the "Times" of 25th February. The first name on it is that of the National


Association of Building Societies. I agree that that is a body which has a very large number of small owner-occupiers in its ranks—owner-occupiers whose rate burden would be relieved if this Bill were passed; and I say that, in taking the action it has taken, the National Association of Building Societies is not acting in the interests of the great mass of owner-occupiers. I remember that the Chairman of this Association functioned in the General Election—he functioned on the utter untruth that the Labour party proposed to damage the interests of the owner-occupier—as an assistant of the Conservative party. He has a right to do so, but we ought to know. If this National Association of Building Societies is going to become permanently one of the allies and associates of the great property-owning interests and the Conservative party, let them say so, and let us know where we are. The truth is that this Bill will benefit the owner-occupier who now is having to find part of the rates which are evaded by the owner of unoccupied property.
Who else is there that represents the great masses of the population on this question? Who are the organisations for whom hon. and right hon. Gentlemen are acting to-night? There is the Municipal Reform party of the London County Council. I say nothing about them here; I say plenty to them to their faces. Then there are the chief non-Socialist Metropolitan boroughs—a minority of the Metropolitan boroughs; the Chartered Surveyors' Institution; the Land Union—where is the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George)? There are the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents; the Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute; the London Municipal Society—let me not be tempted to say anything about them; the Scottish Rating Reform Association; the National Federation of Property Owners and Factors of Scotland; the National Federation of Property Owners and Ratepayers; the London Property Owners' Protection Association, Limited; the chief estate and property owning companies; the National Federation of Quarry Owners; the Freeholders' Society; the chief insurance companies—and Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. It is absurd to suggest that that list of societies is representative of public opinion. Practically every one of them

is a vested interest seeking to avoid its proper share of municipal burdens.
The opposition to this Bill is animated by a desire that certain privileged sections of the community shall not pay their proper share towards local taxation. Legislation in recent years has tended to exempt classes of the community from the payment of rates, and to concentrate the burden on the rest. I beg the House to consider not only justice to property owners but justice to the general body of ratepayers. We have practically relieved the whole of British agriculture from the payment of rates. We have relieved railways of three-quarters of their rates, and we have relieved industrial hereditaments of 75 per cent. I must not pursue the matter, but the railway companies have taken legal action which is tending enormously to diminish their rates, and in the case of one railway company it is declared that they have no rateable value whatever. The right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) no doubt has his share of responsibility to the railway companies.

Sir R. HORNE: All that the railway companies desire is to get their legal rights. Is it to be assumed that the railway companies are to be put outside the pale of the ordinary citizen and denied their rights?

Mr. MORRISON: I am bound to say that the railway companies sometimes make strenuous efforts to get out of any liabilities. But if the right hon. Gentleman comes to the House of Commons, or goes to a court of law, and says that those people should not pay rates, these people should be exempted and that others should be excused, we who have to make up the difference in finding the rates have some right to be consulted.

Sir R. HORNE: Surely the right hon. Gentleman trusts a court of law to administer the law? You may alter the law if you like, but as the law stands surely a citizen is entitled to go to the court to have the law declared?

Mr. MORRISON: I agree, but I am bound to say that I should think it was going rather far to seek a. legal decision which declared that public undertakings should pay no rates at all. The basis of our argument is not that we are seeking additional revenue, The purpose of this Bill is to do justice as between one class of ratepayer and another. My hon.


Friend the Member for North Lambeth has demonstrated that the owner of empty property does get some advantage from the municipal services during the period of unoccupation. I think he gets a great deal of advantage. It is no good saying that he gets no real advantage from the fire brigade. If a fire occurs on empty premises, the London County Council puts it out. We do not say, "We will not put your fire out because you are not contributing." Moreover, if a fire breaks out in neighbouring occupied premises it is important to put it out, to protect the unoccupied premises. If the drainage service did not function the unoccupied property presently would be worth nothing at all. It is the same with police, with street lighting and with highway maintenance. If the municipality was not ready, when property became occupied, to afford all the municipal services to it, the empty property would be worth practically nothing. I, therefore, say that this is a modest proposal. My only doubt is whether it ought not to be 50 instead of 25 per cent. It is in my judgment an eminently reasonable proposal, and I think the House ought to give it a favourable consideration.
It is argued that it will have the effect of reducing rents and, therefore, rateable value. There are many business men in the City and in Westminster who consider that the level of rents in those districts is extortionate, unreasonable and improper, and if the effect of the Bill were somewhat to reduce rents there and in certain other parts of London, they would welcome the action of Parliament in passing this Bill. There is, therefore, a perfectly reasonable and

rational case for the Bill. It is said that it is wicked, and almost immoral, that property which is not in beneficial occupation should be rated. May I draw one or two analogies and comparative cases? If property held on lease becomes empty, the ground landlord does not cease to charge rent. If a business man ceases to make a profit, his landlord does not cease to charge him rent and, if it is right that the owner of unoccupied property should pay no rates at all, is it right that the unemployed middle-class man or workman whose income ceases should go on paying rent to a private landlord, or even rates to the municipality or indirect taxes to the State? These are not unreasonable analogies.

Hon. Members are quick to plead the rights of the owner of empty property from which he is drawing no income, but they would resist to the last the right of the unemployed workman to the same consideration from the community so far as rent and taxes are concerned. The case for the Bill has been proved. I am only asking the House to give it a Second Reading and let the experts go upstairs and argue it out. The opponents can call evidence from any part of the country that they wish, or from any class of experts. The House should indicate that it is not afraid of the case for the Bill being examined impartially before a Committee and should give it a Second Reading and reserve their final judgment until it has been properly considered by a Committee.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 125; Noes, 254.

Division No. 63.]
AYES.
[11.0 p.m.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Cove, W. G.
George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)


Adamson, W. M.
Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford
Gibbins, J.


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. (H'lsbr.)
Daggar, G.
Green, W. H. (Deptford)


Ammon, C. G.
Dalton, H.
Greenwood Rt. Hon. A.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Grenfell, D. R.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Davies, D. L. (Pontypridd)
Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)


Banfield, J. W.
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton)
Groves, T. E.


Batey, J.
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)


Benson, G.
Day, H.
Hall, J. H (Whitechapel)


Bevan, A.
Dunn, E. (Rother Valley)
Hardie, G D.


Broad, F. A.
Ede, J. C.
Harris, Sir P. A.


Bromfield, W.
Edwards, A. (Middlesbrough E.)
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)


Brooke, W.
Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)


Brown, C. (Mansfield)
Evans, D. O. (Cardigan)
Henderson, T. (Tradeston)


Buchanan, G.
Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.
Hicks, E. G.


Chater, D.
Frankel, D.
Holland, A.


Cluse, W. S.
Gardner, B. W.
Hollins, A.


Compton, J.
Garro-Jones, G. M.
Hopkin, D.




Jagger, J.
Mathers, G.
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)


Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Maxton, J.
Smith, E. (Stoke)


John, W.
Messer, F.
Smith, Rt. Hon. H. B. Lees- (K'ly)


Jones. A. C. (Shipley)
Montague, F
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Morrison, Rt. Han. H. (Ha'kn'y, S.)
Sorensen, R. W.


Kelly, W. T.
Morrison, R. C. (Tottenham, N.)
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Kennedy, Rt. Hon. T.
Naylor, T. E.
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Kirby, B. V.
Paling, W.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Lansbury, Rt. Hon. G.
Parker, H. J. H.
Thorne, W.


Lawson, J. J.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
Thurtle, E.


Leach, W.
Potts, J.
Tinker, J. J.


Lee, F.
Price, M. P.
Viant, S. P.


Leonard, W.
Pritt, D. N.
Walkden, A. G.


Leslie, J. R.
Quibell, J. D.
Watkins, F, C.


Logan, D. G.
Richards, R. (Wrexham)
Westwood, J.


Lunn, W.
Riley, B.
White, H. Graham


Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Ritson, J.
Wilkinson, Ellen


McEntee, V. La T.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


McGovern, J.
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
Wilson, C. H. (Attercliffe)


MacLaren, A.
Rowson, G.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Maclean, N.
Sexton, T. M.
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)
Shinwell, E.



Mainwaring, W. H.
Short, A.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Marklew, E.
Simpson, F. B.
Mr. Whiteley and Mr. Charleton.


Marshall. F.
Sinclair, Rt. Hon. Sir A. (C'thn's)





NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Colman. N. C. D.
Heilgers, Captain F. F. A.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)
Heneage, Lieut. -Colonel A. P.


Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir W. J. (Armagh)
Cooke, J. D. (Hammersmith, S.)
Hepburn, P. G. T, Buchan.


Amery, Rt. Hon. L. C. M. S.
Cooper, Rt. Hn. T. M. (E'nburgh, W.)
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)


Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)
Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. J. W. (Ripon)


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Craddock, Sir R. H.
Holdsworth, H.


Apsley, Lord
Cranborne, Viscount
Holmes, J. S.


Aske, Sir R. W.
Croft, Brig. -Gen. Sir H. Page
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.


Assheton, R.
Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.
Hopkinson, A.


Astor, Major Hon. J, J. (Dover)
Croom-Johnson, R. P.
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir R. S.


Astor, Hon. W. W. (Fulham, E.)
Cross, R. H.
Horsbrugh, Florence


Atholl, Duchess of
Crowder, J. F. E.
Howltt, Dr. A. B.


Baldwin-Webb, Col. J.
Culverwell, C. T.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M, (Hack., N.)


Balfour, G. (Hampstead)
Davison, Sir W. H.
Hulbert, N. J.


Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)
Dawson, Sir P.
Hume, Sir G. H.


Barclay- Harvey, C. M.
De la Bère, R.
Hunter, T.


Baxter, A. Beverley
Denman, Hon. R. D.
Jackson, Sir H.


Beauchamp, Sir B. C.
Denville, Alfred
Jones, Sir G. W. H. (S'k N'w'gt'n)


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'h)
Dodd, J. S.
Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth)


Birchall, Sir J. D.
Donner, P. W.
Kerr, Colonel C. 1. (Montrose)


Beit, Sir A. L.
Dower, Capt. A. V, G.
Kerr, H. W. (Oldham)


Blair, Sir R.
Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)
Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)


Blaker, Sir R.
Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Keyes, Admiral of the Fleet Sir R.


Blindell, Sir J.
Duggan, H. J.
Kimball, L.


Borodale, Viscount
Duncan, J. A. L.
Kirkpatrick, W. M.


Bossom, A. C.
Dunne, P. R. R.
Knox, Major- General Sir A. W. F.


Boulton, W. W.
Eastwood, J. F.
Latham, Sir p.


Bowater, Col. Sir T. Vansittart
Edmondson, Major Sir J.
Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)


Bower, Comdr. R. T.
Ellis, Sir G.
Leech, Dr. J. W.


Bowyer, Capt. Sir G. E. W.
Elliston, G. S.
Lees-Jones, J.


Boyce, H. Leslie
Emery, J. F.
Levy, T.


Boyd-Carpenter, Major Sir A. B.
Emmott, C. E. G. C.
Little, Sir E. Graham-


Bracken, B.
Entwistie, C. F.
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.


Brass, Sir W.
Errington, E.
Lloyd, G. W.


Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Fildes, Sir H.
MacAndrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G.


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Fraser, Capt. Sir l.
M'Connell, Sir J.


Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)
Fremantle, Sir F. E.
McCorquodale, M. S.


Brown, Brig. -Gen. H. C. (Newbury)
Fyfe, D. P. M.
McEwen, Capt. H. J. F.


Bull, B. B.
Ganzoni, Sir J.
McKie, J. H.


Burghley, Lord
Glimour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Macmillan, H. (Stockton on-Tees)


Burgin, Dr. E. L.
Gluckstein, L. H.
Macnamara, Capt. J. R. J.


Butt, Sir A.
Goldie, N. B.
Magnay, T.


Campbell, Sir E. T.
Goodman, Col. A. W.
Maitland, A.


Cartland, J. R. H.
Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
Makins, Brig.-Gen. E.


Carver, Major W. H.
Gretton, Col. Rt. Hon. J.
Manningham-Buller, Sir M.


Castlereagh, Viscount
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.


Cautley, Sir H. S.
Grigg, Sir E. W. M.
Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)


Cayzer, Sir C. W. (City of Chester)
Guest, Hon. 1. (Brecon and Radnor)
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Guest, Maj. Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'll, N. W.)
Mitchell, H, (Brentford and Chiswick)


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)
Guinness, T. L. E. B.
Mitcheson, Sir G. G.


Channon, H.
Guy, J. C. M.
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. j.


Chapman, A. (Rutherglen)
Hacking, Rt. Hon. O. H.
Munro, P. M.


Christie, J. A.
Hanbury, Sir C.
Nall, Sir J.


Clarry, Sir R. G.
Hannah, I. C.
Nicolson, Hon. H. G.


Cobb, Sir C. S.
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
O'Neill, Major Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh


Colfox, Major W. P.
Harbord, A.
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. G.


Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir G. P.
Haslam, H. C. (Horncastle)
Orr-Ewing. I. L.




Palmer, G. E. H.
Samuel, Sir A. M. (Farnham)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir M. F.


Patrick, C. M.
Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)
Sutcliffe, H.


Penny, Sir G.
Sandys, E. D.
Tasker, Sir R. 1.


Perkins, W. R. D.
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir P.
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (Padd., S.)


Petherick, M.
Savery, Servington
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.


Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Scott, Lord William
Titchfield, Marquess of


Ponsonby, Col. C. E.
Selley, H. R.
Touche, G. C.


Power, Sir J. C.
Shakespeare, G. H.
Train, Sir J.


Pownall, Sir A. Assheton
Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)
Tryon, Major Rt. Hon. G. C.


Procter, Major H. A.
Shute, Colonel Sir J. J.
Tufnell, Lieut. -Com. R. L.


Purbrick, R.
Simmonds, O. E.
Wakefield, W. W.


Radford, E. A.
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U. B'lf'st),
Walker-Smith, Sir J.


Raikes, H. V. A. M.
Smiles, Lieut.-Colonel Sir W. D.
Wallace, Captain Euan


Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.
Smith, L. W. (Hallam)
Ward, Lieut.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Ramsden, Sir E.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)
Ward, Irene (Wallsend)


Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)
Smithers, Sir W.
Waterhouse, Captain C.


Rawson, Sir Cooper
Somerset, T.
Wayland, Sir W. A.


Rayner, Major R. H.
Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)
Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.


Reed, A. C. (Exeter)
Somerville, D. G. (Willesden, E.)
Williams, H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Reid, Sir D. D. (Down)
Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)


Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)
Spender-Clay, Lt.-CI. Rt. Hn. H. H.
Windsor- Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Ross, Major Sir R. D. (L'derry)
Spens, W. P.
Wise, A. R.


Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Wolmer, Rt. Hon. Viscount


Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir. E. A.
Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)
Storey, S.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir Kingsley


Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)
Stourton, Hon. J. J.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)



Salmon, Sir I.
Strickland, Captain W. F.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES —


Salt, E. W.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Mr. Harvey and Mr. Keeling.


Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.

Second Reading put off for six months.

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT, 1935.

11.10 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Unemployment Insurance (Inconsiderable Employments) Regulations, 1935, which were presented to this House on the 22nd day of January, 1936, be annulled.
Last night we were debating regulations dealing with imports, and I then thought that it would be an advantage if the same procedure could be adopted in the case of the regulation with which I am now dealing. Instead of having to move a negative Resolution, I think it would be much better if the Minister had first of all to get the affirmative approval of this House for any regulations that are issued. One of the difficulties in which we are placed is that we are arguing against an accomplished fact. The Minister has already put this regulation into operation, although if he had had to bring it before Parliament it might have been rejected. We are, therefore, always handicapped in having to argue against a Minister who has already put into operation regulations to which we are opposed. I wish that our procedure could be altered. I say most respectfully that these unemployment regulation orders affecting the lives of

large numbers of the common people should be dealt with under some better procedure than exists at present, and that we ought not to have to discuss them after 11 o'clock at night, when most hon. Members desire to get away. I apologise for having to keep the House but this is the only way I can raise the issue.
The question deals with a section of the working people. For many years persons who worked for a period of eight hours or less in a week with an employer did not have a stamp put upon their cards although if he so desired he could insist that a stamp should be put upon it. Legally a stamp ought to have been put on his card, but the Department did not force it unless the individual so desired. That was the position until recently. It has now been altered. The Statutory Commission have heard evidence on this point and have decided to change the procedure. The evidence was given chiefly from the Trade Union Congress, and one or two other trading bodies. The Trade Union Congress took the same line against the regulation as I am taking to-night. They thought it ought not to be put into operation. The effect of the regulation is that in the case of any person securing work with an employer for less than four hours during the week no stamp will be put on his book. That is the new law. I agree that there was a time when large numbers of working people did not want to put stamps on their cards, but the position has changed. The coming of the means test and the


30 stamps, and the need for 10 stamps to be secured thereafter, has brought about a different situation, and a man—I say this with sorrow—would now almost work for nothing in order to get a stamp. That is a cruel criticism of the law.
The unemployed men search for work and sometimes they get it. There was a time when men were penalised, because they did not seek work—if they were not genuinely seeking work they were not given benefits. The position now is that if the men search for work and obtain four hours or less, they have not to get a stamp on their book. This means that a man may start work for an employer, Mr. A., on Monday, and do four hours work or less. There is no stamp. The same thing may happen with an employer, Mr. B., on Tuesday. On Wednesday the same thing may happen again. A man may work for four different employers for 16 hours in a given week and yet no stamp is put on his card. I would remind my hon. Friends who represent constituencies in which there are dockers that this has a serious effect on the docking community. I do not profess to speak on this matter with the same knowledge as is possessed by the hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. Benjamin Smith), who has been connected with the Dockers' Union for a lifetime, but I do know that the shift for dockers is four hours or under. A docker may obtain work with three or four different employers in a given week and yet may not be allowed to have a stamp on his card.
There is another class of men to whom this applies—the waiters. These men stand outside the Employment Exchanges and services agencies waiting for a job. A waiter might get a job for a dinner one night, a dinner the next night, a lunch the next day—if he has luck; and all these jobs would be for four hours or less and for different employers, and consequently no stamp would be put on his card.
At the present time the average working man wants to stamp his card. The curious thing is that one would have thought that if there were a demand for non-stamping it would have come from the working people. A worker may get five or six shillings for four hours work, and 10d. represents a big inroad on that sum. Consequently, one would have

thought that the demand for non-payment would have come from the workers; but it has come from other sources. As far as I can gather from the evidence given before the Commission, collection is said to be difficult in certain cases. I cannot see the difficulty of collection. The only reason I can find for this—and it was stated before the Statutory Commission —is the possibility of a man getting 30 stamps in 30 weeks for only four hours work in each week and then becoming a drag on the fund for standard benefit, which has to be met out of the contributions of those who are at work.
May I try to meet that case? Surely these men would become a drag in any case whether they go on the fund or on the local rates and if it is a choice between the two, is it not more defensible that they should go on the fund than that they should become a charge on local rates? If the theory is that people should be encouraged to look for work why should any penalty be placed upon a man in these circumstances, even if the amount of work he has done is small? Why penalise men who go out in search of work, who do a few hours work in a week? So far from discouraging them this House ought to see that no obstacle is placed in their way.
Another thing which the Order seeks to do, and which I do not understand, is to prevent people who take on the work of clearing snow from getting stamps. I suppose that Scotland gets a larger share of snow than the South and I know that such cases arise. If a man is employed on four days in clearing snow why should be not get a stamp? I may be told that such a man has to be searched for, that he is not easy to find and that his books may be missing. I cannot follow that reasoning. With the best will in the world, I can see no reason for this. It may be said that in regard to inconsiderable employment the term was eight hours. The Minister may say, "It was eight hours, and I am reducing it to four" I say that it was only eight hours because the Department did not require the stamp to be put on. The real legal position was that if a person worked for any portion of a week, he ought to have a stamp. It is the Department which has allowed the legal position to go, and now the position is being made worse by the right hon. Gentleman making it four hours instead of nil.


To-day we are entering on what I think is a wrong policy, a policy of penalising men who have had the greatest difficulties to face, men such as those who go into markets or market gardens, or who drive cattle on market day. It is a disagreeable and a mean job. They go down to the docks in search of work. They may get an hour or two's work, and to penalise them is unfair. The Minister ought to revert to the former practice that any person who is given a period of work ought to have it allowed to continue for a stamp.
Under the Order the Minister proposes that where a week is regularly worked from, say, Wednesday to Wednesday, only one stamp is to be put on for that week. I gather that in some parts of the country there are men who have worked for years one week in two weeks, and the week runs from Wednesday to Wednesday. I am told that there is only to be one stamp put on for that week. This involves a serious principle, and it raises sharp issues. Once this goes in, I am afraid it becomes irresistible that you will have to base your sum not on the week of the Unemployment Insurance Fund, but on the week of the employers. If it suits the employers to bring in men from Wednesday to Wednesday then those employers, for suiting their own convenience, ought to find it no hardship to pay for two stamps instead of one stamp. I have never yet found any body of workmen objecting to pay for these stamps. God knows, they pay too regularly. What they object to is the treatment they receive even when they have paid, but never once have I heard from these people any real objection to payment of stamps. I trust that these regulations, which I think will affect large numbers of people and inflict hardship, will tonight at least be examined and given some scrutiny by this House, and that we shall not pass them lightly, because they affect the lives of poor and, I think, very decent people.

11.28 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: I am sure the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) had no need to apologise to the House for raising a matter of this importance. He has enlightened the House with that ability which on these matters is

peculiarly his own, and I do not propose to take any time in further legal explanation of the position. I think those who were here during the proceedings on the 1934 Act which is called the 1935 Consolidation Act, will agree that all these dangers that we pointed out during those long drawn out Debates have proved to be in fact almost understatements. Here we are to-night called upon, after 11 o'clock, to discuss regulations which affect great masses of men and which, when they get into actual effect, may indeed have the result of robbing some thousands, if not tens of thousands, of men of unemployment benefit. As the hon. Member said, what has been the practice administratively is now about to be made the law, with this exception, that roughly the Ministry of Labour said that if a man was engaged for eight hours a day, he had to have a stamp put on his card, but this says that he must be engaged for four hours. But there is this difference, that when a man was engaged, and it had to be decided by the Ministry of Labour whether or not he was to be insured, they could use their own power and knowledge from time to time—what, we call "savvy." Now a direct law has been laid down, and it will be studied by all the worst types of employers and used for their own purposes. I do not think there is the slightest doubt that if these Regulations pass, a new science will grow up among employers to see how they can employ men for the shortest possible time without being liable for the stamp.
There is one thing I cannot understand about this matter. An investigation was held concerning juveniles from 14 to 16. The Minister has certain powers under what is called an emergency clause to declare that certain juveniles for the moment are outside insurance and to make regulations which must be considered by the Statutory Committee. The Minister did that. He declared that juveniles from 14 to 16 were to be for the moment outside insurance. The Statutory Committee investigated the matter and decided that the juveniles had to be inside and that this four hours limit had not to apply to them. If any one were to read the report, they would ask themselves why, if these juveniles were not to be subject to this rule, should the adults be subject to it. There is not an argument that can be used in the one case that cannot be used in the


other. What the Statutory Committee said on this point was very striking. It was that the evidence tendered to them when they were considering the regulations submitted to them by the Minister brought to their notice the extraordinary variety of ways of eking out a living by small or occasional employment. I think they would be more surprised if they knew that, whereas they thought the limit of four hours was to deal with all who could be legitimately insured, it has been discovered there are certain dockers who do not work very often even four hours and that they will not be insured. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. Benjamin Smith) has a particular instance which he will give. I understand that in some of the larger ports there is a limit of four hours while in some of the smaller ports it is two or three. In these conditions, these men will not have their stamps put on their cards and will not be counted as insured.
I ask the House to visualise the possibilities in view of the widespread nature of industry and its complexities. Industry, when dealing with matters of this description, is a kind of unknown quantity, and if the House gives consent to these regulations it will not be much older before it finds that it has innocently given consent to regulations which have actually had the effect of declaring masses of men outside insurance whom the House never intended to be excluded.
The hon. Member for Gorbals very graciously did justice to the Trades Union Congress. They sent a letter to the Statutory Committee in which they said:
The Council ask me to point out that if the Regulations in their present form are made effective it would be possible for large bodies of insured workers in any industry to be deprived of a contribution to which they are properly entitled, For example, where for any cause, such as breakdown, a works had to be closed for a week, the workers concerned would lose a contribution for that week if less than four hours had been worked.
I dare say the right hon. Gentleman will say that it is not contemplated that incidents of that kind should be brought within these Regulations. Supposing that a factory stopped through a breakdown of machinery, or a mine was stopped, within two hours of beginning work, and the men were idle for a week, is it not possible that even that kind of case may be brought within the words "inconsiderable employment"? That

case has been put to me and the Trade Union Congress actually put it to the Statutory Committee. It is possible that such a case would be outside the Regulations, but the Minister ought to make a declaration on the point to-night in order that we may know what the position is.
Then there is the question of those engaged in snow shovelling, men who are entitled to our sympathetic consideration but are likely to be penalised because of these new Regulations. Had this Debate come at the beginning of the day one would have had a lot more to say on the matter, but I ask the House to treat it very seriously. During the passage of the Act of 1934 we were assured time after time that the Government would give every facility for the proper consideration of the Regulations. This is not the time of night for such a full consideration; the opportunity has certainly not been given to us. But I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the points put by the hon. Member for Gorbals, the wider point I have put and the point that is to be put by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherhithe are of sufficient importance not only to call for a reasoned answer but to make him hesitate before trying to push the Regulations through. I ask him to take them back and let the Statutory Committee have a further look at them. The Trades Union Congress, which has wide knowledge of the ramifications of industry, has received additional evidence on the point we have been submitting, even since their evidence was given. I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will not push these Regulations through to-night, but will take second thought on this matter.

11.41 p.m.

Mr. BENJAMIN SMITH: I trust that the Minister is sufficiently cognisant upon this matter to be able to answer several specific points I wish to raise. In 1935, the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, in submitting evidence to the Committee, adduced arguments in regard to the position of the casual worker at the docks. They were satisfied with the assurances given that nothing was contemplated in these Regulations to affect that position. With the issue of these Regulations, and upon making inquiry at the Ministry, we were informed that the particular Regulation which deals


with persons of 16 years of age and over, and who work for less than four hours—I presume that that means what it says, and not four hours or less—would remain as they have always been. They include the great majority of the dock and riverside workers of Great Britain.
To meet the exigencies of a very casual coastwise trade in some of the smaller ports in Scotland—one in particular—we have had to agree to a two-hour minimum in order to attract the small parcels to be delivered at these smaller ports, to save their being taken to the larger ports and coming overland. With regard to the Irish train at Greenock, we have been forced to agree to a one-hour minimum or any part of an hour. Will this Regulation affect those people who have heretofore come within the purview of dock workers who, in the past, have been in receipt of benefit. I would ask the Minister to give a specific reply, so that we may be assured that dock and riverside casual workers in the warehouses will maintain their position as heretofore.

11.43 p.m.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Mr. Ernest Brown): I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) and the hon. Member for Rotherhithe (Mr. Benjamin Smith) for giving me notice of these questions, and I will deal with those points first. I assure them that there was no intention in the mind of the Statutory Committee or of the Government to affect dock workers. Let me quote what the committee said on this question:
Although there are industries in which wages are reckoned on an hourly basis, and an engagement may be terminated by giving an hour's notice, there is no industry in which the normal period of continuous engagement on any one occasion for the bulk of the men is less than four hours.
That was said particularly in reference to the dock industry. These Regulations have been in operation since 3rd February. Notification was given on 20th December. Until late this morning I had no intimation about this point. I think it is true that the great bulk of all the docks of the country is intended. I understand from my hon. Friend and from other sources that there is a small number working less than four hours, and I would say specifically to the House

at once and to the hon. Member that I have asked for full particularns to be given to me, and as soon as they are received I will have them investigated. I will take any action that appears to be necessary. I have the power by means of a provisional regulation to take action at once and to make it effective as soon as a decision is reached. That I shall do, to make quite sure that the position of the dockers is as was contemplated by the Committee and by the Government.
This is an important matter, and the House and the country are under an obligation to the hon. Member for Gorbals Mr. Buchanan for raising it in the only way open to him. It is not my duty to debate to-night the general question of the Regulations, but let me explain the position. I must disagree with the hon. Member on his illustration of fact. I understand him to say that the man who works from Wednesday to Wednesday will pay only one contribution, but that is not so; he pays two. He only pays one if he has been unemployed since the beginning of a week, starts a shift of not more than a, normal working day before Sunday night, and works again on Monday; or he pays one contribution if he finishes a shift not more than a normal working day after midnight on Sunday and becomes unemployed for the rest of the week. It is at the weekend that this shift operation becomes effective. For the rest, it is a matter of evidence. It is very easy, when one is dealing with the administration of a great and complicated machine, and feeling that one is doing one's public duty, to use, in expressing the point of view of those affected, words like "robbery" and "penalisation," but the emphasis is wrong.
The general case made by those who, outside this House, have been criticising these Regulations, is that what is being done now will cause a great many people who, before the Order, had stamps for their cards, not to have stamps for their cards. That is not ark accurate statement. We are now regularising in a narrower form what has been the practice under all Governments; I will give the reasons for it directiy—they are stated in one of the three reports of the Committee. The practice which is now being narrowed was that, as the hon. Member for Gorbals says, people in inconsiderable


employment of less than eight hours, although legally they should be required to pay a contribution, were informed, if they made inquiry, that the payment would not be enforced unless the worker desired it. The cases in which the worker has desired it have been, over all these years, very few indeed.

Mr. BUCHANAN: The number is increasing.

Mr. BROWN: I could not accept that; that is not my information. Again it is a matter of evidence, and I say that there have been very few indeed of such cases. Of course there has been a lot of discussion, not in this House but before the Committee and outside. The matter arose, as the Committee themselves have said, because under the Act of 1934 all those who had to administer the Insurance Acts have realised that this administrative practice was most unsatisfactory, but the difficulty was to find a way out that was fair to all concerned and administratively practicable. The very cases that have been referred to to-night show how difficult it must have been to administer the previous law. Let me begin by stating the reasons given by the Statutory Committee. They stated:
In general, if a certain type of work would be insured when performed by a regular employee, it is undesirable to exclude it from insurance when it is done by a casual employee; relieving the employer from contribution may appear to place a premium on casual engagements. But strict application of this principle without any exceptions at all is impracticable, and it appears anomalous to insure people against loss of employment when the employment itself is trifling. Apart from this general consideration, the special reasons which in the past have led the Minister of Labour to adopt a fairly extensive administrative practice of not pressing for contributions in the case of inconsiderable employments are mainly four:
"(1) That for very short periods of employment the full weekly contribution, amounting for adult men to 1s. 8d. and for adult women to 1s. 6d. from the employer and employee together would represent a tax out of proportion to the wages paid. On two or three hours of work the contribution might often exceed the wages.
"(2) That apart from the financial hardship, the trouble of requiring production of unemployment book and affixing thereto of stamps in respect of few hours of employment is excessive.
"(3) That in the case of persons who were employed in this way only occasionally, and were otherwise neither insurably employed nor seeking a livelihood by insurable employment, to enforce insurance

would mean levying contributions in respect of which they had practically no chance of obtaining benefit. A typical example cited to us was that of the married woman who works as a waitress now and again on Saturday afternoons or on special occasions.
"(4) That, on the other hand, the collecting of contributions for trifling periods of employment might involve the fund in excessive claims for benefit, by persons who had no chance of obtaining a livelihood by insurable work, but contrived to get enough contributions just to keep qualified. Ten contributions secured perhaps by doing ten hours' work in ten different weeks, might give a. claim to benefit for 26 weeks. Consideration of this possibility was one of the main reasons leading the Ministry to desire legal authority for their administrative practice. In such cases the employee might wish to press for contributions even where the employment was trifling, in order to make a claim; the Ministry in the absence of statutory exception would be compelled to support him."
The question has been under examination by the committee for a period of a year and a half, and they heard evidence from, not only one or two bodies, as suggested by the hon. Member for Gorbals, but many. If hon. Members will look at the appendix to the report for May, 1935, they will find a long list of bodies who made representations to them. The committee themselves, as my observation of their work leads me to believe they always do, went to the utmost trouble to get all the facts that were available. Because of difficulty in administering the law under the Act of 1934, as the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street said, power was taken to make Regulations about this matter and other matters, and my predecessor made Provisional Regulations which were laid before the Statutory Committee. They considered them and came to this conclusion. It was not advisable to deal with the question of juveniles apart from the general question. They therefore remitted the Regulations back and they were allowed to lapse. But they said that they thought that the whole question should be investigated. It was investigated at length.
The result of the investigation is as follows. First of all, it was agreed, after hearing all the evidence, that it was necessary to make Regulations of this kind in respect of inconsiderable employments of the type mentioned. They also said that the recommendations now enshrined in the Regulations are the very minimum that ought to be done if the


situation is to be adequately met. I have now to tell the House precisely what will happen under these Regulations. I may begin by drawing a comparison in the three classes of cases of the position before the Regulations and now. Take the first class, persons employed on Sunday where the spell of employment extended to the following week at least to the extent of one working day. Previous to the Regulations the practice was that Sunday employment was insurable but the contribution was not usually pressed for, though in a few cases it was. Under the Regulations Sunday employment in those cases will be excepted. In the second class, the case of persons employed on Monday where the spell of work covers the previous week to the extent of Sunday and one other day, the previous practice was that the Monday employment was insurable but the contribution was not usually pressed for. Now the Monday employment will be excepted. In the case of a person of 16 or over employed in clearing snow on more than four days a week, the previous practice was that the work was insurable but contributions were not usually pressed for, if the employment did not exceed eight hours. Under the Regulations they will be excepted.
Hon. Members will ask why that should be so. The committee made this quite clear. The fact is that the exception of these people is nothing new. Until recently they were excepted under the Subsidiary Employment Order, but on the revision of that Order the exception was dropped on the ground that these employments were not now usually carried on as subsidiary employments to other employments but by people who were not otherwise employed. The contribution to be paid by these people is not only administratively very inconvenient, since they do not usually possess unemployment books, but they have to be taken on at short notice and the employer cannot state how long the employment may last. The earnings are very small and the deduction in proportion to the earnings is very heavy. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Gorbals speaks with very great positiveness about that matter. That is not the case. Every Government and every Minister of Labour in turn has found that rigidly to enforce the law in these difficult and complicated cases

was impossible, and that is why year after year they have never done it. Now for the first time we are attempting to regularise the thing and put it on a firm basis, and a narrower basis than the administrative practice, for instead of having it up to eight; hours it is now up to four hours. That will mean that more people will pay contributions under these regulations than did under the usual administrative practice.
I will answer the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street about the other cases in this way, that the House now has the advantage that it never had before that there is a regular procedure whereby immediate attention cart be brought to any hardship arising under regulations of this kind. Not only have I power now to make Provisional Regulations to meet an emergency if the emergency is proved, but, more than that, the Statutory Committee is there and in practice, in the infinite variety of cases that are brought to the Ministry—there is a list of a hundred separate ways in which men and women earn small sums of money by inconsiderable employment—as we apply this we shall find oat where the shoe pinches. We will watch it with the utmost care, and I shall take very good care to see that, if things not intended to happen under the Order occur, they are put at once before the Committee for consideration, and that appropriate action is taken. The Order has been in force since 3rd February, and to-day is the first time that the case of the docker has come to our notice.

Mr. LAWSON: What about breakdowns in the mining industry

Mr. BROWN: The answer to that question is that such cases will be very few indeed. We do not have many breakdowns in the mining industry. If a man is compelled to stop working by reason of a breakdown occurring less than four hours after the beginning of the working week and is off for the rest of the week, he will not pay a contribution under the Regulations.

Mr. T. SMITH: This matter is very important to those who are engaged in mining. Suppose there is a breakdown at nine o'clock on the Monday morning—the men having gone down the pit at six o'clock—and the pit does not work again that week on account of the breakdown, does the Minister mean to say that the


men who have gone down on the Monday morning and have not worked four hours will have no stamp?

Mr. BROWN: I think that that will be so under the Regulations. I speak with reserve, and I am giving the House the best judgment I can on the point.

Mr. SMITH: Then the right hon. Gentleman must expect a good deal of discontent and hardship.

Mr. BROWN: These are things that we shall watch with very great care. When we are applying an honest practice under the law by Regulations in a field so intractable and difficult as this, cases are bound to crop up which can be dealt with under the conditions I have stated.

Mr. BENJAMIN SMITH: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, in such a case, there will be immediate consultation on the matter, and, if there is proof of real hardship, something will be done to ameloriate that condition?

Mr. BROWN: I give the House the fullest assurance about that, and I shall watch this matter with the utmost care and use the machinery which exists for investigating to the full all the evidence to see that any such hardship is properly dealt with.

Mr. LOGAN: Do I understand that it means, in regard to Sunday and Monday working, that two separate stamps will be put on the card?

Mr. BROWN: No, the point is that it has been two separate stamps, but now it will be only one stamp.

Sir JOSEPH NALL: I am sure that the House will be glad to have the assurance which my right hon. Friend has just given, and I believe that when he sees something of the operations of these Regulations, he will find that these kind of anomalies will arise. Will he be good enough therefore, to deal with them at the earliest possible moment and not wait until pressure is brought to bear upon him in this House?

Mr. BROWN: I have made that perfectly clear, and the report makes it clear also. The committee are aware that they have not heard of all the cases, although they have had a long investigation. We shall watch them with great care, and so will the committee.

12.4 a.m.

Mr. BEVAN: Do not the cases which have been raised show conclusively to

the Minister that he has used the wrong instrument to deal with the situation? Here you have a very difficult and changing set of conditions in various trades, and, therefore, ought not the most flexible and elastic sort of instrument to be used in connection with them. Yet, what does he propose? He proposes to superimpose a rigid Regulation upon that vast mass of complex circumstances, in place of the flexible instrument existing to-day. The result is that there must be an enormous number of anomalies all of which will have to be corrected by provisional orders in the future.
We are very pleased to hear that the cases of the miner and the docker will receive consideration at the Minister's hands, but they are no more entitled to receive consideration than the other vast mass of casual labourers. Many of these have no funds or organisation, and are they not entitled to justice? Because the dockers and the miners are organised and can make representations they will have justice, but hundreds of thousands of people who are not organised at all will have no justice. What is the existing position? It is that our kind of society cannot be carried on except by a vast mass of casual labour of various kinds. Our vast machinery is lubricated by this vast mass of casual labour, and though there is the new hierarchy of the labour world, if this vast mass of casual labour were not there, the machinery of our civilisation would be very much more difficult than it is. Are not they entitled to the same form of protection and the same justice?
The Minister explained the position, and said that unfortunately the consideration of these cases involved a lot of administrative difficulties, and that very often it is necessary for members of the Ministry of Labour to consult the workman when he insists on having the stamp. He said the number of those cases was so inconsiderable and the number of instances where workmen insisted on stamps was so few, that not very much hardship would be inflicted by this Regulation. But the Minister misses the point. It is because the labourer now has the right to have the stamp that he gets the stamp without dispute. The Minister has no statistics to enable him to decide what is the extent of this difficulty, because the employer knows that the workman has only got to insist on the stamp and


he gets it, therefore, without any dispute arising. The Minister does not know what is happening now. If you take away from the workman the right of insisting on a stamp, the consequence is that the employer can do what he likes. It is merely because the right is there now on the part of the workman that he has been able to go to the employer and agree with the employer to have the stamp put on the card and a dispute does not arise. I submit to the Minister that his suggestion inadequately protects the position in the casual labour world, and will in fact do a far greater injustice than he knows in this matter.
The Minister has not made out a case for altering the existing position. He admits that the existing position is a flexible one, and that where difficulty arises it can be investigated and common sense applied to the vast variety of circumstances in the casual world and yet he says it is necessary for this vast machine, this Advisory Committee of highly-paid persons with nothing else to do, to sit for months and months to see how they can squeeze all these poor devils to the post. That is what is happening. Whenever you appoint a committee of this description outside the purview of this House, they have to justify their salaries, and you see Regulations of this sort pushing these poor devils against the wall. It is entirely unworthy of this House, and there could be no greater offence against public decency. It is said that a few weeks' benefit is being got which ought not to be got. The House should be ashamed of itself for establishing a vast machine to squeeze these poor devils. What is going to happen to them if they do not get benefit? Have you had from the Federation of British Industries a complaint that the unemployment insurance contributions are a heavy burden because they have to meet a few weeks' benefit? Has the Trades Union Congress, representing over one-third of the contributors to the Insurance Fund, received protests that their contributions are going to poor people who ought not to get it?
The only people who have moved in this matter are the Advisory Committee of highly-paid persons who are going to get evidence. I submit it is unworthy of the Minister and the National Govern-

ment that it should persecute people of this sort. A case has been made out for this Regulation to be withdrawn. A vast number of individuals who are enjoying benefit now will not enjoy benefit if this Regulation is carried. Will the Minister tell us what will happen to these persons? They will have to go to the National Board for their own distress and for unemployment assistance, unless they are outside insurance, as many are, and then they have to go on to the rates. All their cases will have; to be investigated and all the circumstances taken into account. It is not simplifying the machinery of government because these men will still have to be dealt with. The only difference is that the Minister will have perfected the symmetry of the insurance system.
Many of us warned the Government at the time when this Committee was established that this sort of Advisory Committee was of the kind which would act objectively, dispassionately and mercilessly and create damage to the weaker members of the community. There are men in this House who are very rich and in comfortable circumstances. If you go to the West End on any winter's evening, you will see lines of old men, 40, 50 and 60 years of age, carrying sandwich-boards. This great committee, presided over by a distinguished economist, was engaged for 17 months in discovering how it can deprive the poor old sandwichmen of a few weeks' unemployment benefit. There is no more pitiable spectacle than some of the human derelicts who, out of permanent employment, try to find a few shillings to keep themselves together. That is the type of man that the Minister is going to persecute. What a Government! If tiny had any bowels of pity they would not tolerate this sort of thing. Some men manage to get a few days' work in snow clearance. That does not last long in the English climate, but the National Government are working out statistics to find out how long a fall of snow rests on the ground. They said that a fall of snow in England rarely lasts three days. Therefore, if a man has not spent four days clearing away snow, he does not get a stamp. That is the sort of legislation brought forward by the Government, and I submit to hon. Members that if they have any sense of decency at all, they will ask the Minister to take away this Regulation.

12.16 a.m.

Miss WILKINSON: I would like to raise a matter of considerable importance which has not been dealt with so far. The Minister knows that when a man dies his widow's pension rights depend on whether he has had a definite number of stamps during the five years prior to his death. I know that is not an employment question, but one concerning health insurance, and I know that if the man has not been unemployed for a long time, it does not affect him. Nevertheless, as the Minister knows, if a man has been nut of employment for a considerable time, he tends to fall out of the insurance scheme. There are marginal cases where a man has been out of the insurance scheme for a considerable time and has therefore jeopardised the rights of his widow to a pension if he dies. I know this would be a complicated business, but could not the Minister give the House some assurance concerning these marginal cases? Otherwise, it would mean that the unfortunate woman would have her pension rights jeopardised if the man dropped out of the insurance scheme.

Mr. R. J. TAYLOR: In the reply which he gave concerning the dockers, the right hon. Gentleman said that the point which had been raised could be settled because it would come under the head of "successive employment." I want to ask whether, if a man works three or four days in the course of a week, that could not be regarded as successive employment?

Mr. E. WILLIAMS: The right hon. Gentleman has said that he will carefully consider the cases that have been referred to, but I want to ask how these cases could arise without the present procedure with regard to the court of referees and the umpire being short-circuited? Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to short-circuit that procedure? If he does not propose to do so, does he not consider it advisable to take back this Regulation?

12.19 a.m.

Mr. LOGAN: The hon. Lady the Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson) has referred to certain anomalies. I would ask the Minister whether he is not aware of the fact that, if the question of the dockers is to be settled by placing them on the basis of permanently employed men, he is creating some anomalies? It was definitely stated that in the case of the dockers the cards would be stamped.

I submit that if that be the case, there is a differentiation, in that the right to benefit is to be given to the docker and denied to other workers in casual employment. I do not understand why we should have this distinction. Here we have relatively two different classes of employment that can go on continuously, and there is the anomaly side by side of one employment that can carry qualification in regard to what the hon. Lady has mentioned as being insured, and that other form of employment which will not carry insurance benefit because it does not come within the category of being employment. The Minister must know the differentiation under the National Health Insurance Act between employment and casual employment, and I am anxious, if it is possible, to see that, in the determination that is made, we shall have something that can be applied generally, all round. I should have thought that, in bringing in Regulations like this, the question of anomalies ought to have disappeared, and I think we ought to be truly grateful to the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) for raising these important points.
I know the Minister has a difficult job, but I am aware too that a body of men has been set up to deal with these matters. These well-paid men have been long enough considering how they shall frame and apply Regulations, and it is about time that the question of anomalies disappeared. We should have no further anomalies. It should be right along the line of one flat scale. I am in total disagreement with the Ruling that has been given here to-night. It will be within the recollection of the House that I asked the Minister if he really meant that, in regard to the question of Sunday, which will, I consider, be concerned as the seventh day of the week, which comes within the working week and end that week, and Monday, which will commence the new week—I asked if I was to understand that two separate stamps would be placed on the card, and the Minister said, "No, there should only be one."
I do not understand—[Laughter.] I do not know what the laughter is about. If hon. Members opposite were accustomed to this question, they would know that if Sunday was a working day, your card would be stamped in that week, and if you started work on the Monday your card would have to be stamped again on


the Monday for the working week. I am pointing this out to those who have no knowledge of these matters but who are supposed to be legislators. I am trying to point out the inequalities and the anomalies. Here you have the National Health Insurance Act, which says that you must stamp the card for a working day. Therefore, if you had a working day on the Sunday, it is the seventh day of the week, and the Monday becomes the first day of the week. I want to know why we should have this differentiation. I think we ought to have two days in regard to the stamping of the card. I am anxious to see the Minister having a clearer passage than the last Minister on this job, and I ask for his consideration of these matters.

12.25 a.m.

Mr. ELLIS SMITH: I want an understanding of what the Minister has said to-night, because I have just found out that I represent a large number of men who are affected, and I want to know what the right hon. Gentleman's assurance means. My hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), who obviously has a great understanding of the administration of the Act, raised a very important point, and that is, How is the Minister, with the machinery that is being operated, going to deal with these cases if we raise them with him direct?

12.26 a.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I was going to raise a point of order arising out of what took place last night, when a Ruling was given with regard to a Mover of a Substantive Motion being allowed to speak again, but I will be content by saying a word or two arising out of what was said by the hon. Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson). You cannot come here and argue, as the Minister has done, that it is impossible to get books for unemployment insurance. If you are going to have no stamping of books for unemployment insurance, you are bound to have employers who will think that no stamping for other matters will be required. What steps is the Minister taking to see that there is no using of this position in connection with health insurance With regard to the question of the workers having asked for their money back, as a matter of fact, there is not the slightest evidence that has ever been produced to

show that the workers have ever wanted to get off without paying. All that has happened is that to-day there is becoming a greater demand than, ever for the working people to pay for insurance stamps. What steps have been taken to safeguard that the national health insurance stamps will be paid for by the employers?

12.28 a.m.

Mr. E. BROWN: I am not entitled to answer for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health at all, but I rise by the courtesy of the House to deal with various points that have been raised. The question has nothing to do with unemployment insurance stamps, but is a matter of health insurance, and I suggest to the hon. Lady the Member for Jarrow (Miss Wilkinson) that she will find that the problem has never been confined to my particular Ministry or to unemployment insurance. It arises out of the impracticability and variety of a whole series of small employments which happen day by day in every town in this country. Government after Government, every Government in turn, has been forced to take administrative action, which we are now seeking to put straight. The point raised by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. E. Williams) does not arise either. The question of insurability is not one for the referees at all, but for the Minister, and my legal position is that I have the power, under the Act of 1935, to make Provisional Regulations, and I have said to-night that where things are brought to my notice which were not intended, I will have investigation made.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Will not the right hon. Gentleman institute an inquiry and submit this back to the Statutory Committee for their recommendations?

Mr. BROWN: No. The hon. Member has not seized the point. If such a situation as has arisen about the docks arises, after I have investigated it I have power under the law to make a Provisional Regulation which can be effective, just as this is effective, although the House has still three days for. a Prayer. Then I should, of course at once refer the Provisional Regulation to the Statutory Committee for ratification so that they may take further evidence in order to ensure that the provisional action was one that ought to have been taken. Then they report to me whether they agree


that I ought to have taken such action in pursuance of my duties. There have been three separate reports by the committee. They have everything they need to sort it out, and they were never under any illusion that the first attempt to put a known practice into actual legal form would cover every class of case. That could not be so.
I am sure the House resents the kind of language used about this committee by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan). The chairman is Sir William Beveridge, one of the most high-minded public servants in this country, and a man whose record about the poor and the casuals will more than compare with that of the hon. Member. When the hon. Member talks about persecuting sandwichmen and uses the kind of violent rhetoric which comes so easily from his tongue, let me tell him that the committee is a committee of seven members, not merely with Sir William Beveridge as chairman, but with one of the most distinguished trade union leaders in this country, as well as a representative employer. It is a body of able arid public-spirited men and women—with one woman who shares the views not of hon. Members on this side but rather of hon. Members on the high side below the Gangway. Since I am resenting this, I would like to pay my own personal tribute, on behalf of the Government and the nation, for the painstaking way in which they have investigated every problem put before them.

Mr. JAGGER: I want to be clear on one point. Apparently the Minister has taken the power to say that a person may work in one week a sufficient period of time to qualify for a stamp. That person may work in the next week a sufficient period of time to qualify for a stamp. I understand the Minister to say that that person need only have one stamp. By what right do you alter the law?

Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member misses the point. The only period to qualify for

a stamp is a week. The week is the basis of the contribution in every case. That has been investigated over and over again, and those who followed the report of the Royal Commission will remember that they went into this very carefully as to what the basis ought to be. Although they were not quite satisfied that the week ought to be the basis, they came to the conclusion that there was no other basis possible, so that it does not matter how many stamps a man gets in other jobs in the week; there is only one stamp for one week.

Mr. JAGGER: That does not answer my question. When is the week? Is it any day you like? There is the insurance week. A person works in two insurance weeks and by what right do you alter the law?

Mr. BROWN: The week is from Sunday midnight to Sunday midnight.

Mr. GEORGE GRIFFITHS: With regard to these men who have been shifting snow, there were men who worked in the pit in which I used to work. They ceased working in the pit a few weeks ago and they have been shifting snow. Why cannot they have a stamp if they have been shifting snow for three and a half days?

Mr. E. J. WILLIAMS: May I put one question to the Minister?

Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members do not seem to understand that we are not in Committee.

Mr. WILLIAMS: I appreciate that the Minister has the right to decide the suitability but there must be a conflict of opinion in this matter.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has already made a speech.

Question put,
That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Unemployment Insurance (Inconsiderable Employments) Regulations, 1935, which were presented to this House on the 22nd day of January, 1936, be annulled.

The House divided: Ayes, 79; Noes, 141

Division No. 64.]
AYES.
[12.38 a.m.


Adams, D. (Consett)
Compton. J.
Dunn, E. (Bother Valley)


Adamson. W. M.
Cripps, Hon. Sir Stafford
Ede, J. C.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Daggar, G.
Edwards, Sir C. (Bedwellty)


Banfield, J. W.
Dalton, H.
Fletcher, Lt.-Comdr. R. T. H.


Benson, G.
Davidson, J. J. (Maryhill)
Foot, D. M.


Bevan, A.
Davies, R. J. (Wenthoughton)
Frankel, D.


Brown, C. (Mansfield)
Davies, S.O (Merthyr)
Garro-Jones, G. M.


Buchanan, G.
Day, H.
Gibbins, J.




Greenwood, Rt. Hon. A.
McGovern, J.
Simpson, F. B.


Griffiths, G. A. (Hemsworth)
Maclean, N.
Smith, Ben (Rotherhithe)


Hall, G. H. (Aberdare)
MacMillan, M. (Western Isles)
Smith, E. (Stoke)


Hall, J. H. (Whitechapel)
Mainwaring, W. H.
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Hardle, G. D.
Marklew, E.
Stewart, W. J. (H'ght'n-le-Sp'ng)


Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Marshall, F.
Strauss, G. R. (Lambeth, N.)


Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Maxton, J.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)


Henderson, T. (Tradeston)
Naylor, T. E.
Thurtle, E.


Holland, A.
Paling, W.
Tinker, J. J.


Hollins, A.
Parker, H. J. H.
Westwood, J.


Jagger, J.
Pethick-Lawrence, F. W.
White, H. Graham


Jenkins, A. (Pontypool)
Potts, J.
Whiteley, W.


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Pritt, D. N.
Wilkinson, Ellen


Kelly, W. T.
Quibell, J. D.
Williams, E. J. (Ogmore)


Kirby, B. V.
Riley, B.
Windsor, W. (Hull, C.)


Lawson, J. J.
Ritson, J.
Woods, G. S. (Finsbury)


Leonard, W.
Roberts, Rt. Hon. F. O. (W. Brom.)



Leslie, J. R.
Robinson, W. A. (St. Helens)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Logan, D. G.
Rowson, G.
Mr. John and Mr. Mathers.


Macdonald, G. (Ince)
Sexton, T. M.





NOES.


Acland-Troyte, Lt.-Col. G. J.
Fremantle, Sir F. E.
Penny, Sir G.


Albery, I. J.
Fyfe, D. P. M.
Perkins, W. R. D.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'kn'hd)
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir J.
Petherick, M.


Anderson, Sir A. Garrett (C. of Ldn.)
Gluckstein. L. H.
Ponsonby, Col. C. E.


Apsley, Lord
Glyn, Major Sir R. G. C.
Procter, Major H. A.


Assheton, R.
Goldie, N. B.
Radford, E. A.


Astor, Major Hon. J. J. (Dover)
Greene, W. P. C. (Worcester)
Raikes, H. V. A. M.


Atholl, Duchess of
Gridley, Sir A. B.
Ramsay, Captain A. H. M.


Balfour, Capt. H. H. (Isle of Thanet)
Guest,Maj. Hon. O.(C'mb'rw'll,N.W.)
Rathbone, J. R. (Bodmin)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Guinness, T. L. E. B.
Reed, A. C. (Exeter)


Baxter, A. Beverley
Guy, J. C. M.
Rickards, G. W. (Skipton)


Beauchamp, Sir B. C.
Hannah, J. C.
Ross Taylor, W. (Woodbridge)


Blindell, Sir J.
Hannon, Sir P. J. H.
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel Sir E. A.


Bossom, A. C.
Harbord, A.
Russell, A. West (Tynemouth)


Boulton, W. W.
Harvey, G.
Russell, S. H. M. (Darwen)


Bower, Comdr. R. T.
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel A. P.
Salt, E. W.


Bowyer, capt. Sir G. E. W.
Hepburn, P. G. T. Buchan-
Samuel, M. R. A. (Putney)


Boyce, H. Leslie
Herbert, Major J. A. (Monmouth)
Sandys, E. D.


Briscoe, Capt. R. G.
Hope, Captain Hon. A. O. J.
Scott, Lord William


Brown, Col. D. C. (Hexham)
Horne, Rt. Hon. Sir R. S.
Shaw, Major P. S. (Wavertree)


Brown, Rt. Hon. E. (Leith)
Horsbrugh, Florence
Sinclair, Col. T. (Queen's U. B'lf'st).


Bull, B. B.
Hunter, T.
Smith, L. W. (Hallam)


Burghley, Lord
Keeling, E. H.
Smith, Sir R. W. (Aberdeen)


Cartland, J. R. H.
Kerr, Colonel C. I. (Montrose)
Somervell, Sir D. B. (Crewe)


Castlereagh. Viscount
Kerr, J. Graham (Scottish Univs.)
Southby, Comdr. A. R. J.


Channon, H.
Kimball, L.
Spens, W. P.


Christie, J. A.
Latham, Sir P.
Stourton, Hon. J. J.


Colfox, Major W. P.
Law, R. K. (Hull, S.W.)
Strauss, H. G. (Norwich)


Cook, T. R. A. M. (Norfolk, N.)
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Courthope, Col. Sir G. L.
Levy, T.
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton. (N'thw'h)


Crookshank, Capt. H. F. C.
Llewellin, Lieut.-Col. J. J.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Cross, R. H.
Mac Andrew, Lt.-Col. Sir C. G.
Sutcliffe, H.


Crowder, J. F. E.
M'Connell, Sir J.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Culverwell, C. T.
McCorquodale, M. S.
Thomson, Sir J. D. W.


De la Bère, R.
McKie, J. H.
Titchfield. Marquess of


Dodd, J. S.
Macmillan, H. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Toucne, G. C.


Duckworth, G. A. V. (Salop)
Maitland, A.
Tufnell. Lieut.-Com. R. L.


Duckworth, W. R. (Moss Side)
Mannlngham-Buller, Sir M.
Wakefleld, W. W.


Duggan, H. J.
Mayhew, Lt.-Col. J.
Wickham, Lt.-Col. E. T. R.


Duncan, J. A. L.
Meller, Sir R. J. (Mitcham)
Williams. H. G. (Croydon, S.)


Dunne, P. R. R.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. (Hitchin)


Eckersley, P. T.
Mitcheson, Sir G. G.
Windsor-Clive, Lieut.-Colonel G.


Emery, J. F.
Muirhead, Lt.-Col. A. J.
Wise, A. R.


Entwistle, C. F.
Munro, P. M.
Womersley, Sir W. J.


Errington, E.
Nicolson, Hon. H. G.
Young, A. S. L. (Partick)


Fildes. Sir H.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.



Findlay, Sir E.
Palmer, G. E. H.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Fraser, Capt. Sir I.
Patrick, C. M.
Lieut.-Colonel Sir A. Lambert




Ward and Captain Waterhouse.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Wednesday evening, Mr.

SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at a quarter before One o'Clock.